TNAG-0189-FCO40-225-Chinese-marriages-in-Hong-Kong-1969 — Page 11

NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN

Registry No.

HKK 14/4

DRAFT

Saving Despatch Type 1 +

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION

Top Secret.

To:-

Secret.

Confidential.

Restricted.

Unclassified.

PRIVACY MARKING

..In Confidence

See vermel draft-

From

Telephone No. & Ext.

Department

1

Our Legal Advers have commented as follows on the proposals set out in The enclosure to your Saringram under

Your Saving Despatch No. 1374 of

22 October ref. GR 24/3231/67.

Chinese marriages in Hong Kong

We have now considered your saving despatch

move, and Our Legal Adviser has written that: reference love, and

But Her chanflaghe

1Stet

2.

3.

#

As I understand paragraphs 9, 11 and 1 Lyou above during Decapocket), thenoloxqce A Fit is proposed that

where the legal system of a country

provides for the Chinese modern marriage

and persons contract such a marriage in

such a country, whether before or after

"the appointed date", that marriage shall

be capable of being dissolved in Hong Kong

by mutual consent provided that both

spouses can show that on the date of the

divorce there existed a real and sub-

stantial connexion between the two parties

and Hong Kong.

This proposal is founded on the changes

consequent in the law of England on the

House of Lords decision in Indyka versus

Indyka, changes which in the opinion of the

Covernor's legal advisers will lessen the

-

risk that such divorces would not be recog-

nised in England.

Nothwithstanding, however, the above

mentioned decision, the basic rule still

remains that the English courts continue to

recognise decrees of divorce pronounced by

/the

W(B)L 51-7433