SIMPSON V. SIMPSON AND ROSSI
by GRANVILLE SHARP J.A.
Jurisdiction
COURT OF APPEAL
Judge
GRANVILLE SHARP J.A.
Catalog Type
Case
Judgement Date
Apr 25, 1960
Summary
the petitioner claimed to be domiciled in Ghana, asserting that he had no settled home elsewhere and intended to marry a Ghanaian woman and settle permanently in Ghana. No supporting evidence was presented from the alleged companion or any other source. The petitioner’s counsel relied on authorities that domicile can be proved by the person asserting it. The issue before the court was whether a petitioner’s mere statement of intention, without corroborating evidence, was sufficient to establish a change of domicile by choice. The court held that intention alone, unsupported by evidence of acts or circumstances corroborating the claimed change, was insufficient to prove domicile. It found no basis to interfere with the learned Commissioner’s conclusion and affirmed that a change of domicile by choice must be established by evidence beyond the petitioner’s statement of intention.
Full Content
GRANVILLE SHARP J.A.: The petitioner invited the learned Commissioner to conclude that he was domiciled in Ghana solely in reliance upon his statement that he had no settled home outside Ghana (which country he said he liked), and that it was his intention, after obtaining the divorce, to marry a Ghanaian woman (a Mrs. Carlis Ackuaku) and to settle permanently in Ghana, where, according to him, his whole future lies. His alleged intended companion in life did not give evidence, nor did any other person come forward to say that the appellant had ever expressed a desire or intention to make Ghana his permanent home. There is no evidence on the record of any act done by the appellant in furtherance of his proposed intention.
Learned counsel on his behalf has cited a passage, at page 52 of the 14th edition of Latey on Divorce, to support a proposition that domicile may be proved by the person seeking to establish it. He also cited the cases of Donaldson v. Donaldson [1949] P. 363 and Stone v. Stone [1958] 1 W.L.R. 1287 to support this proposition. Counsel omitted to note, however, that both in the passage in Latey on Divorce, and in the two cited cases it is made abundantly clear that evidence (of an intention to change domicile by choice) given by the petitioner himself must be considered in relation to other facts.
Such intention is a question of fact, and in deciding this question in the present case the learned Commissioner, having given careful consideration to what he referred to as the historical background to the evidence, failed to find any fact to substantiate the petitioner’s professed intention. He heard and saw the petitioner, and we ourselves can find nothing, either in the arguments of learned counsel or upon such facts as appear on the record, which would justify our interfering with the learned Commissioner’s finding. We do not think that a mere statement of intention on the part of a petitioner, without any supporting evidence of extraneous fact, can suffice to justify a ruling that he has changed his domicile by choice.
Appearances
REINDORF FOR APPELLANT; SOWAH FOR RESPONDENT.