The High Court granted a petition for nullity after finding that the petitioner’s serious mental illness and its effects on his personality made him incapable of sustaining a normal marital relationship. The court did not accept his claim that he lacked capacity to consent to the marriage ceremony.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice O’Higgins on 29 July 2005, concerned a marriage ceremony held in Dublin on 6 September 1994. The parties’ names and some personal details are anonymised in the judgment. The petitioner said they had lived apart since about June 1999. The petition raised several grounds, including alleged incapacity and a claim that the respondent had repudiated the marriage.
The respondent initially denied the alleged incapacity and argued that the petitioner had affirmed the marriage, delayed bringing the case and abused the court process. On the fourth day of the six-day hearing, she indicated that she no longer wished to contest the nullity proceedings following events during the hearing. The court was told that financial arrangements had been made, but that they did not depend on the outcome. The judge was satisfied there had been no collusion.
On consent, the judge relied in part on the evidence of the psychiatrist who treated the petitioner shortly before and after the wedding, who said his mental state had not impaired his capacity. The petitioner had also said he knew what he was doing when he married. The court found that he was capable of exercising the judgment to marry, so the petition could not succeed on that ground.
The separate question was whether he could sustain a normal marital relationship. The judge considered evidence from five doctors, including four consultant psychiatrists, and other witnesses. While the judgment noted that bipolar disorder does not itself prevent a person from sustaining a marriage, the judge found that this petitioner’s illness, its effects on his personality and his difficulty appreciating other people’s feelings did leave him incapable of sustaining one.
The court discounted a revised opinion from one psychiatrist because evidence did not establish that medication non-compliance was caused by incapacity, or that the cognitive decline identified later was present when the marriage began. It nevertheless concluded, after assessing the evidence as a whole, that the petitioner’s incapacity to sustain the relationship was established.
The judge also considered whether the petitioner could rely on his own incapacity and whether the respondent had to repudiate the marriage. He said repudiation was not always necessary where a defence had not been entered or had been abandoned, but did not need to decide the case on that basis. He found that the respondent’s judicial separation proceedings, begun in September 2000 and stating that she could no longer reasonably be expected to live and cohabit with the petitioner, constituted sufficient repudiation. The petition was granted on the ground that the petitioner was incapable of sustaining a normal marital relationship. The judgment does not state any further order.