The High Court has ruled that a former wife may proceed with an application for financial relief arising from a 1996 Spanish divorce, finding that the outcome there was unfair and unjust in the circumstances. The court did not decide the amount or make a final relief order: it said further evidence and submissions were needed.
In a judgment delivered on 5 July 2005, Mr Justice Quirke refused the former husband’s applications to set aside leave granted in December 2003 and to strike out the claim. He found that the claim disclosed a reasonable cause of action and that a substantial ground existed for leave to seek relief under the Family Law Act 1995.
The parties, identified in the judgment only as M.R. and P.R., married in Cork in 1976. A Spanish court dissolved the marriage in October 1996, and the High Court recognised that divorce as valid in Ireland in 2003. M.R. had accepted IR£50,000, including costs, in return for not contesting the divorce. The judge found that she received IR£46,000 after costs and that, by agreeing, she permanently gave up her interest in a trust fund. He found it probable that neither party then understood the extent of their interests in the fund.
The judge accepted that M.R. agreed to the divorce because she believed P.R. was dying and wanted to legitimise his two younger children. She had been professionally represented. The Spanish court had not examined either party’s finances because it was told that M.R. would not seek payment. Evidence from a Spanish family-law expert indicated that she could no longer apply there for financial relief. The judge also noted that M.R. had started earlier proceedings in Ireland in 2001 and that the delay before the present case was partly explained by those proceedings and when she learned more about P.R.’s means.
The court found that a trust fund for P.R., his wife and issue was located in or accessible from Ireland, and that it was property available for a relief order. It also found that the 1996 payment was inadequate given P.R.’s means at the time and that no comparable remedy was now available in Spain.
The ruling did not award compensation for past hardship or determine what would have amounted to proper provision in 1996. Any relief must address present hardship and be assessed on circumstances at the time it is granted, with the statutory factors taken into account. The judge said the relief would necessarily be limited, including because of the parties’ comparatively brief cohabitation, P.R.’s poor health and his obligations to his second wife and two children. He directed that evidence and submissions be heard before the full extent of relief is established.