Munasinghe v Munasinghe

On a second appeal in ancillary relief proceedings, permission requires more than a realistic prospect of success. The applicant must show an important point of principle or practice, or another compelling reason for the appeal to be heard.

The treatment of pension entitlements in the division of matrimonial assets is discretionary. Where each party can meet their future needs from their own resources, a clean break and division of available capital need not secure equality of future income. The court’s powers are not directed to preserving the parties’ former standard of living or income equality after divorce.

The husband sought permission for a second appeal against ancillary relief orders following the parties’ divorce. After a three-day hearing, the district judge found substantial matrimonial assets, including property, cash, investments and pension-related resources, and ordered an approximately equal division of capital on a clean-break basis.

The husband appealed to the Croydon County Court. His Honour Judge Coningsby QC dismissed the appeal after reviewing challenges to the factual findings, asset schedule, the husband’s disability, housing needs, future income and the treatment of pension entitlements.

The renewed application raised whether the proposed appeal disclosed an important point of principle or practice, or another compelling reason, and whether the lower courts had erred in treating the parties’ pensions and future incomes as resources to be considered separately.

1. Application dismissed. This was a second appeal. Under section 55 of the Access to Justice Act 1999, it was insufficient to show a real prospect of success. The husband also had to demonstrate an important point of principle or practice, or some other compelling reason for a further appeal to be heard.
2. The distribution of matrimonial assets and the treatment of pension entitlements were matters of discretion. Different approaches could be appropriate in different cases. Nothing in the judgment established a general rule requiring the capital value of one party’s future pension entitlement to be brought into an equalisation exercise.
3. A clean-break approach could involve dividing the assets available at the time of divorce and leaving each party to support themselves from their own future resources, including pensions. That approach had to yield where a party could not meet their own or their children’s needs without further capital or income provision. On the findings made, that qualification did not apply.
4. There was no principle requiring the court to preserve equality of future income or the standard of living which would have continued had the parties remained married. Parliament had repealed a statutory provision arguably directed to that result in 1984.
5. The Court of Appeal should be slow to interfere with detailed discretionary distributions reached after lengthy hearings, particularly where the lower courts had carefully resolved factual disputes and ensured a fair hearing for a litigant with disabilities. The husband’s factual complaints and disputed insurance-policy evidence did not establish a compelling reason for further appeal.

Permission to appeal was refused and the application was dismissed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): renewed application for permission to bring a second appeal dismissed on 17 April 2002.
• Croydon County Court: His Honour Judge Coningsby QC dismissed the husband’s appeal on 7 February 2002.
• Croydon County Court: District Judge Freeborough made ancillary relief orders on 25 April 2001.