Met v Hat
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr. Justice Mostyn |
| Judgment Date | 16 December 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 4247 (Fam) |
| Docket Number | Case No. FD13P04044 |
| Court | Family Division |
| Date | 16 December 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 4247 (Fam)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Mr. Justice Mostyn (in Private)
Case No. FD13P04044
MR. N. Yates (instructed by Vardags) appeared on behalf of the Applicant.
MR. N. Cusworth QC and MR. J. Warsaw(instructed by The International Family Law Group LLP), of Counsel, appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
(Approved — Anonymised)
This judgment was handed down in private on 16 December 2013. It consists of 28 paragraphs and has been signed and dated by the judge. The judge gives leave for it to be reported in this anonymised form as " Met v Hat [2013] EWHC 4247 (Fam) (16 Dec 13)".
The judgment is being distributed on the strict understanding that in any report no person other than the advocates or the solicitors instructing them (and other persons identified by name in the judgment itself) may be identified by his or her true name or actual location and that in particular the anonymity of the children and the adult members of their family must be strictly preserved.
This is an application for "interim interim" financial provision by the wife for herself and for the two children of this marriage, to endure merely until the next hearing, on 21 st February 2014, when the interim arrangements will be reconsidered. It can therefore be seen that we have spent half a day of valuable High Court time debating what the scale of support for the wife and the two children should be for two months. It is a matter of some considerable surprise to me that relations are so antagonistic between the parties, and possibly their representatives also, that cover for that finite period has not been agreed on a no admissions without prejudice basis, but the court is here to adjudicate these disputes and to provide access to justice, even if the court might think that consumption of the resources of the court for such a temporarily trifling dispute is disproportionate.
The husband is a foreign national, aged 62. He has four wives by virtue of polygamy being permitted in his home country, of which this wife is no.4, who he married in 1999. In the 1990s, his involvement in politics in his home country led to self imposed exile. . He later returned, was tried and convicted and confined in prison until 2004, when he was released on house arrest, and released therefrom in 2006.
It seems to me obvious that, before these difficulties in the 1990s, the parties enjoyed a high standard of living. For example, they were able to purchase property here; they were able to visit the United States, where their daughter, S, was born on 8 th July 1999 and where, after his release and confinement, their son, T, was born on 17 th January 2008. In the traditional way, they were able to spend some of the time of the hot summer months here but they lived predominantly in the husband's home country, visiting also Egypt, from where the wife hails. It seems to me obvious that their respective domiciles are (in the case of the husband) his home country , and in the case of the wife a domicile of origin in Egypt, possibly becoming a domicile of choice in the husband's home country on the marriage.
The relationship broke down in 2011. One unknown factor is the scale of the standard of living between 2006 and 2011. The wife has filed copious evidence about this, to which the husband has not yet had an opportunity to reply. It seems to me that it would be unreal for me to proceed on any basis other than it was high, possibly very high.
The marriage broke down in 2011 and the wife moved here permanently with the children. She says "permanently" — that is the word used by Mr. Yates in his chronology — on 22 nd April 2011. It is important that I mark that date, given that the husband says that the parties were divorced, irrevocably, by a triple declaration of talaq in the husband's home country on 29 th March 2012, which is less than one year after the date when Mr. Yates says the wife moved permanently here. When Mr. Yates says the wife moved permanently here, that was permanent only up to a point, inasmuch as it is perfectly clear from Mr. Cusworth's chronology that, between July 2012 and August 2013, the wife was shuttling with the children between here and Cairo, arguably spending rather more time in Cairo than here, and indeed using £1.8 million which had been provided to her by the husband in February 2012 to buy a villa in Cairo, which cost £2.3 million (EGP23 million), she finding the shortfall by selling properties which she owned in Egypt. That property was purchased in 2012 and is a substantial capital asset of the wife and must be borne in mind when I consider the claims which she makes.
It does seem from Mr. Cusworth's chronology that, by August 2013, the wife and the children were back permanently here but it is relevant for me, for the purposes of deciding what support I should give for the next two months, to observe that the wife's connections with this country could hardly be described as "deep-rooted". Indeed, inasmuch as, since August, she has put down deeper roots here and lived a very high lifestyle, Mr. Cusworth may yet to be seen as having a fair point in saying that this is nakedly tactical by her.
So far as the litigation is concerned, on 15 th February 2012, two days after the wife had instructed English solicitors, the husband made a single declaration of talaq in the husband's home country ; I think this may have been done before a judge. The wife then filed her English petition on 12 th March 2012. That, it has to be said, is a rather remarkable document claiming that both the husband and the wife were habitually resident in England and Wales and claiming that the marriage had broken down by virtue of the misconduct of the respondent husband.
The husband must have been aware of this petition because, the day before he was actually served with it, he made a triple declaration of talaq on 29 th March 2012 and that did not in any way, according to the evidence from the jointly instructed expert, Mr. Edge, involve the court in the husband's home country at all. Although the court in the husband's home country operates under a family law passed in, I think, 2006, the husband's home country is nonetheless a conservative state where pure principles of Sharia law apply and where it is perfectly possible and permissible to obtain a divorce, other than by proceedings, through pronouncement of triple talaq, without involvement of the court at all. Moreover, according to the expert evidence of Mr. Edge, there are not even any sanctions for pronouncing bare talaq without the involvement of the court, in contrast to the position, surprising though it may seem, in Saudi Arabia, as was all explained in the decision H v. S [2012] 2 FLR 157 by HHJ...
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