Proof Of Statutory Marriage

Section 32 of the Marriage Act provides that
“Every certificate of marriage which shall have been filed in the office of the Registrar of any district, or a copy thereof, purporting to be signed and certified as a true copy by the registrar of such district for the time being, and every entry in a marriage register book, or copy thereof certified as afore said, shall be admissible as evidence of the marriage which it relates, in any court of justice or before any person having by law or consent of parties authorities to hear, receive, and examine evidence.”
Before 1970, admissible evidence of a statutory marriage consists of only the official marriage certificate or entry in the marriage register, but now a marriage may be proved by a document which purports to be a copy of any certificate, entry or record (as stated in the above provision). This is particularly relevant when the marriage is celebrated in a licensed place of worship and the official marriage certificate was not issued to the parties nor an entry made in the appropriate books. It is now possible under the Act to prove the marriage by a certificate of marriage issued by or under the authority of a religious denomination, which does not comply with the provisions of the marriage Act. The Act also admits any entry or record of marriage kept by such organization.
In Ayaebunam V. Ayaebunam the parties were married at the church of the Holy Name of Mary, Abetete, in the East Central State on the 28th of January 1961. The marriage was celebrated by Reverend Huge Roche, who issued the parties with a certificate of marriage which was not in the form prescribed in form E in the first schedule of the Marriage Act. Ten years later the wife petitioned for judicial separation, but the husband raised a preliminary objection that the court had no jurisdiction to adjudicate on the petition, because the marriage was a customary marriage which was followed by a church blessing. Only the respondent gave evidence during the court hearing, in course of which the marriage certificate was tendered. The respondent in his evidence bluntly denied contracting a monogamous marriage with the petitioner. In the court of first instance Phil-Ebosie J., held that the was a valid marriage. But on further appeal there Supreme Court held that it was the petitioner’s task to prove that there was a valid monogamous marriage and that she failed to discharge that burden, the court-therefore concluded that the court at first instance lacked jurisdiction to hear the petition. The reason for this is because the certificate of marriage is not in the form prescribed in form E in the first schedule to the Marriage Act.
Note therefore that it is respectfully submitted that the interpretation of Section 86 of the matrimonial Causes Act 1970 distorts the plain language of that provision. The section refers to the original or a certified true copy of any certificate entry or record of marriage… The phrase “any certificate” in the section is not qualified anywhere and therefore cannot be restricted to a certificate in form E. if that was the intention of the drafters, it would have been clearly stated.

Nkechi Bright Ewere