JUDGMENT

Evrol Mariette Peters J:

Introduction

[1] This was a petition filed by the Petitioner to annul his marriage to the Respondent pursuant to s 69 of the Law Reform (Marriage & Divorce) Act 1976 ("Law Reform (Marriage & Divorce) Act"), on the ground that the Petitioner was still married to his first wife, when he registered his marriage to the Respondent.

[2] To protect the privacy of the parties, and due to the sensitive nature of the issues involved, the Petitioner-Husband and Respondent-Wife have been anonymised in this judgment as WEI and MEI, respectively.

The Factual Background

[3] In 1978, the Petitioner legally registered his marriage at the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara, Kedah, to an individual named FEI, a Taiwanese citizen. However, without obtaining a formal legal divorce from FEI, the Petitioner, in May 1992, registered a second marriage with the Respondent ("the Second Marriage"), also a Taiwanese citizen, at the High Commission of Malaysia at Hong Kong.

[4] It was only in 2012, two decades after the Second Marriage, that the Petitioner had finally divorced FEI.

[5] In August 2024, the Petitioner, now aged 71, initiated legal proceedings by filing a petition to annul the Se