THE High Court has ruled that a woman who remarried before the divorce to her previous husband was made final will not be entitled to maintenance payments, now that the later marriage has also tanked.
In a reserved judgment released on Tuesday, Justice Kan Ting Chiu said this was because when she married her latest husband, a Briton, in October 1995, her earlier marriage to a Japanese man was technically still in force.
She had been told by the Japanese man that their marriage had been dissolved in June 1995, and she took this information at face value.
Under Japanese law, however, the divorce would have taken another six months - or until December that year - to become final.
This made her 10-year union with the Briton void from the very start.
The issue of maintenance and the division of matrimonial assets came up after her marriage to him broke up as well.
-- ST
wow. failed SPG