PATIENCE ARTHUR V. MOSES ARTHUR

JUDGMENT

DR. 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 22^nd 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 follows:

i.…