08/10/1960

OF CRIMINAL APPEAL (INFERIOR)

HARDING WILLIAM

VIVIAN DE GRAY, M.V.O., B.B.E., B.E.M., NE. vs JEAN SYBIL PALMER

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N/A

The wife of a person who has been born in Malta and is a British subject is a person who, in terms of the Immigration Ordinance, "belongs to the Islands". Hence, the wife of such a person is not a prohibited immigrant. But if there has been a divorce between that person and his wife, and the latter has been living apart from her husband, the wife cannot claim that she is not a prohibited immigrant. For although a judgment of divorce given by a Court outside Malta, cannot be executed here, inregard to the dissolution " a vinculo matrimonii" it can be given effect to as a judgment of personal separation, if it is bases on some cause which is recognised by the law of Malta as a ground of personal separation, and if the cause, under Maltese law, gives rise to the particular consequence which is being debated. The order of the Commissioner of Police for the removal from these Islands ofsuch a woman cannot be resisted by her on the ground that she is the wife of a person belonging to the Island, and that she is not, therefore, a prohibited immigrant.