§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ LORD STANMOREMy Lords, this measure has been introduced as the result of a judgment delivered in the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, in the case of Keyes v. Keyes and Gray, in which a decree granted by a Court in British India dissolving a marriage contracted in India between persons resident there, though domiciled in England, was pronounced to be invalid in England. With a view to validating such decrees granted in India under the Indian Divorce Act, the Indian Divorces (Validity) Act was passed last year. It has been ascertained that certain divorces have been granted in Kenya, under the local Divorce Ordinance, in cases in which the husband had no domicile in the Colony. In view of the judgment just referred to, these divorces cannot be regarded as valid, and, as some of the parties thereto have probably re-married, it is essential that the divorce decrees of the Kenya Court should be validated by Imperial Act. The Bill follows the lines of the Indian Divorces (Validity) Act, 1921. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stanmore.)
§ On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived. Then (Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended), Bill read 3a, and passed.