PROMISES OF MARRIAGE LAW

PROMISES OF MARRIAGE

CHAPTER 5

PROMISES OF MARRIAGE LAW

To abolish the power of the courts to order the specific performance of

promises and contracts of marriage, and to provide another remedy for the

breach thereof.

(28th June, 1834) *

Enacted by PROCLAMATION No. VI of 1834.

This Proclamation may be cited as the Promises of

Marriage Law.

No court in Malta shall have jurisdiction, power, or

authority, to compel, adjudge, decree or order any person

specifically to perform or complete any promise of marriage made

to another, or any contract or agreement entered into with another

for the solemnization of marriage.

(1) Nevertheless, if any person competent by law to enter

into obligations, or any person who is not so competent from being

under paternal or other lawful authority or limitation, but who acts

with the consent duly granted of the person or persons in whom

such authority is legally vested, shall make or enter into any such

promise, contract, or agreement as hereinbefore mentioned, and

shall wilfully and unlawfully commit a breach thereof, or shall,

after making or entering into such promise, contract, or agreement,

have unlawfully refused to perform the same within a reasonable

time, after request made, (of the reasonableness of which time the

court shall be the competent judge), the party injured shall be

entitled to maintain an action for damages against the party guilty

of such breach or non-performance, in such manner, and subject to

the same rules, as are by law prescribed, for the recovery of

damages for the breach of any other promise, contract, or

agreement.

(2) In any such action the party injured shall be entitled to

recover, over and above and in addition to such damages and costs

as may have been actually suffered and be due, according to law,

such a reasonable sum of money, in compensation for the injury

suffered, as to the court in its discretion, having regard to the

character and station in life of the parties as well as to all other

circumstances of the case, shall seem meet, and as the court on the

trial of the cause, shall award and assess.

(3) An appeal shall lie from any decision of the court in the

same manner and subject to the same rules as are by law prescribed

in regard to appeals from judgments or decrees relating to a breach

of any other promise, contract, or agreement.

*Published on the 2nd of July, 1834, Government Gazette No.1224.