Eroglu v Eroglu
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 11 January 1994 |
| Date | 1994 |
| Year | 1994 |
| Court | Family Division |
Thorpe, J
Divorce – foreign divorce – divorce obtained by fraud – whether divorce would be recognized in England.
The parties were married in Turkey in 1974. The husband was Turkish, the wife was British. At that time a Turkish national was entitled to privileged and abbreviated National Service if a University graduate. Those privileges were lost if he were married to a foreign national. It was not uncommon for educated Turks with foreign wives to go through a process of divorce and then the couple would remarry when the abbreviated National Service was over. The parties decided to do this. Each was separately legally represented and they obtained a divorce in 1976, the wife alleging the ground of extreme incompatibility. The husband served his abbreviated National Service in 1981/1982. The parties continued to live together after the divorce and had two children, one born in 1985, the other in 1988. In 1992 the wife petitioned for divorce in England. The husband sought dismissal of the petition on the ground that the marriage was already dissolved by the Turkish decree of 1976. The wife alleged that the Turkish decree should be refused recognition as it was obtained by fraud.
Held – Section 45 of the Family Law Act 1986 provided exclusive statutory rules for the recognition of foreign divorces. In the present case the Turkish decree of 1976 satisfied the grounds for recognition in s 46 of the 1986 Act. By s 51(3)(c) of the 1986 Act recognition of the divorce could be refused on the ground that it would be manifestly contrary to public policy. Fraud was not a ground for refusal, although in exceptional circumstances the fact that one party might have deceived the other and the foreign court might be relevant to exercise of the statutory discretion. In the present case the wife had participated with the husband in deceiving the Turkish court in presenting a case of extreme incompatibility when in reality they were as one. The Turkish court had pronounced its decree in good faith and nothing in the circumstances would justify withholding recognition of the decree.
The wife's petition failed but she would be granted leave to apply for financial provision under the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984.
Statutory provisions referred to:Family Law Act 1986, ss 45, 46 and 51(3)(c).
Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984.
Case referred to in judgment:Kendall v Kendall [1977] Fam 208; [1977] 3 WLR 251; [1977] 3 All ER 471.
Lord Meston for the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Golubovich v Golubovich and Another (No 2)
...including fraud on the court which granted the divorce, is not itself a ground for non-recognition of a decree: see Eroglu v Eroglu [1994] 2 FLR 287 and Kellman v Kellman [2000] 1 FLR 785.A uniform approach should be taken to public policy questions in European courts, public policy rarely ......
-
H v H (Queen's Proctor intervening) (validity of Japanese divorce)
...1 FLR 116, CA. Cruh v Cruh [1945] 2 All ER 545. El Fadl v El Fadl[2000] 1 FCR 685, [2000] 1 FLR 175. Eroglu v Eroglu [1994] FCR 525, [1994] 2 FLR 287. Fuld’s Estate (No 3), Re, Hartley v Fuld [1965] 3 All ER 776, [1968] P 675, [1966] 2 WLR H and R (minors) (sexual abuse: standard of proof),......
-
Afsana Lachaux v Bruno Lachaux
...a discretion “which should be exercised sparingly”, at p. 189. This mirrored what Thorpe J (as he then was) had said in Eroglu v Eroglu [1994] 2 FLR 287 at p. 289. The divorce in El Fadl was valid by the personal law of both parties and had existed for 17 years. Although the wife was initia......
-
Np v Krp
...notice: the husband having failed to tell the court of her address: notice was a requirement, and the court had been misled by H. In Eroglu v Eroglu [1994] 2 FLR 287 where there was fraud by both the Husband and Wife in order to protect the Husband from extended military service and on the......