About this case:

• Citation:
  [2024] IEHC 684
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court
• Judge:
  Mr Justice John Jordan

Delivering judgment for the High Court in October, Mr Justice John Jordan highlighted: “There is no known judgment of the Superior Courts concerning an application for a declaration that a decree of nullity granted in another jurisdiction is entitled to recognition in this jurisdiction.”

Background

The applicant, a professional athlete domiciled in Ireland, and the respondent, an American citizen domiciled in the US, married in Wicklow in August 2020. There were no children of the marriage.

Shortly thereafter, there was a complete and irreversible breakdown in the relationship. The appellant decided during the first week of December 2020 that he no longer wanted to be part of the relationship and the respondent packed up her belongings and returned to her family home in Colorado.

The applicant filed an annulment petition in Arizona in December 2020, with a consent decree being granted in 2021 declaring the marriage null and void in circumstances where the marriage was not entered into with the requisite mental capacity due to the stress of Covid-19 and where the parties had felt under pressure to proceed with the wedding as it had been cancelled and re-planned three times.

The applicant issued proceedings in Ireland on 20 July 2021 seeking inter alia a declaration pursuant to s.29(1)(d) of the Family Law Act 1995 that the annulment granted by the Superior Court of Arizona is entitled to recognition in this jurisdiction. The respondent did not engage with the proceedings.

The High Court

Mr Justice Jordan set out the relevant provisions of the 1995 Act, noting: “There is no known judgment of the Superior Courts concerning an application for a declaration that a decree of nullity granted in another jurisdiction is entitled to recognition in this jurisdiction. In these circumstances the Attorney General felt it was appropriate to become a notice party in the proceedings.”

The judge considered the affidavits of three American lawyers, which agreed that the Superior Court of Arizona had jurisdiction to grant the decree of annulment and that same was valid and effective across the US.

The Attorney General identified four issues of systemic importance.

The first was in relation to the correct legal test applicable in determining whether a decree of nullity granted in another jurisdiction outside the EU should be entitled to recognition in Ireland. In this regard, the AG submitted that common law rules applied and that the court was concerned with the status of the parties and was governed by their domicile.

Mr Justice Jordan agreed that the rules for the recognition of a decree of nullity granted outside the State should mirror and reflect the rules for the recognition of decrees of divorce granted outside the State as set out in the Domicile and Recognition of Foreign Divorces Act 1986 (as amended), being that a decree of nullity is entitled to recognition if either party to the application is domiciled in the country where the decree is granted at the date of the commencement of the proceedings.

The court also agreed with the AG’s assertion that domicile was to be determined in accordance with Irish law rather in accordance with the law of the country in which the decree of nullity was granted.

The AG also addressed the issue of whether one party to the annulment was required to be domiciled in the specific territorial/federal unit where the decree was granted where different systems of nullity applied to different units. The court accepted that “both the common law, in regard to pre 1986 divorces, and statute law, in regard to post 1986 divorces, treat each territorial unit in a federal state as a separate country for the purposes of domicile, and recognition of a foreign decree of divorce”.

The final issue raised by the AG was whether a court is entitled to have regard to the fact that information relevant to the nullity application was not disclosed to the court which determined the application and was therefore not considered by it, in particular where the application was on consent of both parties.

In this regard, Mr Justice Jordan agreed that if a judgment is pronounced by a foreign court in respect of a matter within its jurisdiction, then the High Court should not investigate the propriety of the proceedings in the foreign court unless they offended the court’s view of substantial justice in line with, inter alia, Pemberton v. Hughes [1899] 1 Ch. 781 and s.30(3) of the 1995 Act.

The High Court was satisfied that there was no evidence of collusion between the parties and that their failure to disclose to the Arizona court the fact of their application for a marriage exemption order would not have altered matters.

Having considered the respondent’s history, Mr Justice Jordan considered that as the applicant husband was domiciled in Ireland at the time of his filing the petition for nullity in Arizona, the High Court was required to determine whether the respondent wife was domiciled in Arizona at that time, noting that “this must be determined in accordance with Irish law”.

Having regard to the evidence before it, the High Court was satisfied that the respondent had “established her life in Arizona long prior to 21 December 2020” and that Arizona was her domicile of choice when the nullity proceedings commenced in December 2020.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the High Court determined that the requisite proofs were met and granted the declaration sought.

W v. C [2024] IEHC 684