Maintenance payment to divorced wife not automatic, rules judge

 

The Kuala Lumpur High Court has ruled that there is no hard and fast rule requiring a man to pay maintenance to his former wife.

KUALA LUMPUR: A High Court judge has held in a non-Muslim matrimonial proceeding that a former wife is not automatically entitled to maintenance from her former husband due to changing times and circumstances.

Justice Evrol Mariette Peters said it must be remembered that the provisions of the Law Reform (Marriage & Divorce) Act 1976 were enacted when clear demarcations existed to separate the roles of husbands and wives.

“Most women were stay-home mothers and were financially dependent on their husbands, who were the breadwinners for the family,” she said.

However, a whole generation has passed since the Act came into force, and those roles have evolved over time.

“Women are no longer relegated to merely handling household matters.

“Gone are the days where a woman’s only place was in the kitchen. As such, there is no automatic right for a woman to claim maintenance from her husband,” she said.

Peters said Section 77(1) of the Act, which came into force on March 1, 1982, states that the court may order a man to pay maintenance to his wife or former wife.

This indicates that the court has a discretion and must take all relevant factors into account.

“There is no hard and fast rule that a man must maintain his wife or former wife,” she said, when refusing to order maintenance payment sought by a woman, identified only as GOW, against her former husband (GOS).

She said the court was governed by the “means and needs” test pursuant to Section 78 of the Act when exercising its discretion.

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“The defendant (wife) had failed to fulfil the ‘needs’ test and as such, there was no necessity for the plaintiff to provide spousal maintenance,” she said in a 21-page judgment released on Monday.

GOW, a Chinese national, had married GOS in August 2007. They have two children, aged 15 and 12.

Her former husband is a financial analyst and works part-time as a real estate agent, besides running a small business dealing with car replacement tools.

In September 2016, she obtained an interim protection order after claiming to have left the matrimonial home after suffering years of abuse at the hands of her former husband.

Peters, however, gave sole guardianship and custody of the children to the mother and ordered her former husband to pay monthly maintenance of RM4,000 towards the children.

She also gave the former husband access to the children subject to several conditions, including that he refrain from threatening or assaulting her or the children. - FMT