The High Court has refused a motion by a respondent in family law proceedings to stop the Irish case from continuing on the basis of a 1994 Dutch divorce and maintenance order.
Mr Justice William M. McKechnie delivered the judgment on 22 February 2006. The motion was a preliminary issue: the court considered whether it should decline jurisdiction over claims for ancillary relief, not the merits of the underlying family proceedings.
The parties married in Ireland in 1980 and have three children. They moved to the Netherlands in 1987, and the applicant and children returned to Ireland in 1992. In September 1994, a Rotterdam court granted a divorce and ordered monthly spousal maintenance. It declined to decide custody and child maintenance.
The High Court had refused recognition of the Dutch divorce in 2001, finding that the respondent was domiciled in Ireland when the divorce was granted and that residence alone was insufficient for recognition. The Supreme Court dismissed the respondent’s appeal in 2003. The parties therefore remained married under Irish law.
The respondent’s 2004 motion argued that European rules on jurisdiction and recognition required the Irish court to decline jurisdiction, to avoid potentially conflicting decisions. The applicant opposed the motion, arguing in part that the 1994 judgment fell outside the relevant regulations’ time limits and that its maintenance element could not be recognised in Ireland given the Supreme Court’s decision.
Mr Justice McKechnie first allowed the respondent to raise the new challenge despite his failure to bring it earlier. The judge said the issues had general importance and the respondent had undertaken not to raise further new grounds after this motion was determined.
On the motion itself, the judge held that the lis pendens rules did not apply to the Dutch divorce judgment: it predated the relevant regulations, and the Dutch proceedings had ended in judgment before the Irish motion. The court also held that the Dutch maintenance order could not be recognised in Ireland because it depended on the parties being divorced, contrary to the Supreme Court’s ruling that they remained married here. The judge rejected the respondent’s separate arguments based on treaty obligations and freedom of movement.
The court refused the reliefs sought in the motion. It did not decide the underlying claims for judicial separation or ancillary orders, which remained for the family proceedings.