[2013]DLSC2747 • July 26, 2013 • Supreme Court •
PATIENCE ARTHUR vs. MOSES ARTHUR
The parties, Patience Arthur and Moses Arthur, entered into a customary marriage later converted to an Ordinance marriage in 1998. They have three children and lived in Ghana and abroad. The respondent was a professional footballer, and the petitioner served as his driver and homemaker, prevented from working outside the home. They acquired properties during marriage, including a matrimonial home and a storey building at Weija, Accra. Upon marital breakdown, the petitioner sought divorce, custody, maintenance, and declarations of joint ownership of the properties. The respondent denied joint ownership and alleged adultery by the petitioner. The trial court dissolved the marriage, awarded custody to the petitioner, and granted her half share of the storey building and related assets. The Court of Appeal reversed the property division, holding the trial judge erred in applying section 19 of the Matrimonial Causes Act without investigating the parties' standard of living. The petitioner appealed to the Supreme Court.
read moreDR. DATE-BAH JSC: The Roman poet Virgil in his Eclogues asserts that “Omnia vincit Amor”, meaning that love conquers all things. Alas, the empirical evidence from divorce litigation belies this assertion. It is one of the responsibilities of the courts to sort out the messy consequences of love stories that have unravelled. This case falls into this category of love stories gone sour. In its effort to put order into the messy consequences of the breakdown of the marriage of the parties to this suit, the Court of Appeal gave a judgment which constitutes a derogation from the advance subsequently made in the equal protection of spouses’ interests in marital property, in Mensah v Mensah (unreported judgment of this Court, Suit No.J4/20/2011, delivered on 22nd February 2012). The Court of Appeal’s decision therefore deserves careful scrutiny. The Facts This is an appeal from a unanimous judgment of the Court of Appeal. The orders made by the Court after its judgment were as ...