Waiver of Contractual Rights
| Date | 01 November 1955 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1955.tb00332.x |
| Published date | 01 November 1955 |
| Author | J. C. Smith |
Sov.
1956
NOTES
OF
CASES
609
still used by foreign women unable otherwise to obtain permission
to remain here.6
The courts have indeed a difficult task in attempting to reacb
just decisions in the face of legislative provisions of this kind.
On the one hand, a decree of nullity in such cases deprives the
woman who has entered into such a fraudulent scheme of the
British nationality to which she should never have been entitled.
But this would be no deterrent in such a case as
Silver
v.
Silver,
where the woman had enjoyed British nationality for nearly
thirty years, during which she wished to live here, and would be
quite happy to lose
it
on marriage to a German. Moreover,
it
is
hardly desirable that people should be encouraged to enter into
marriages when
it
suits them and have them annulled at will. On
the other hand,
it
is surely an abuse of the process of the courts
for a woman who has entered into a sham marriage for the sole
purpose of being able to live with another man to be solemnly
granted a dissolution of this marriage because
of
the adultery of
a husband with whom she has never lived and in whose behaviour
she can have no real interest whatsoever. Surely it is time that
the theory was discarded that by a ceremony of marriage a woman
automatically acquires her husband’s nationality. Permission to
reside in this country would
of
necessity be granted, as of course,
to
wives of British citizens, but the weighty matter of nationality
should await the conclusion of proper inquiries, in the interests of
both public security and public morals.
0.
M.
STONE.
WAIVER
OF
CONTRACTUAL
RIGHTS
IN
1938
the Tool Metal Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (T.M.M.C.), the
owners of certain patents, entered into a formal agreement with
the Tungsten Electric Co. Ltd. (T.E.C.O.) whereby T.M.M.C.
licensed T.E.C.O. to deal in the products protected by the patents
(called
“
contract materials
”)
in consideration of T.E.C.O.’s pay-
ing a royalty
of
10
per cent. on the net value of all contract
material used by T.E.C.O. other than material supplied by
T.M.M.C. Clause
5
of the agreement provided that if in any
month the contract material used by T.E.C.O. exceeded
a
quota
of
50
kilograms T.E.C.O. should pay to T.M.M.C.
“
compensation
”
equal to
80
per cent. of the net value of the excess contract
material.
The compensation provision turned out to be a very hard one
for T.E.C.O. even before the war. With the war, production
There are
of course many cases, of women refugees from oppression
of
various kinds,
which invite sympathy, but
it
is submitted that the best solution cannot
be to prefer those who show
so
little respect for their own integrity or the
mcial institutions of this country
as
to
enter into sham marriages to secure
such immediate and aubomabic advantage.
a
Evidence
of
the practice was given in
H.
v.
H.
[1954]
P.
258, 261.
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