Meena & Meena

In *Meena & Meena*, the applicant sought a decree of nullity of her marriage to the respondent. The proceedings were transferred to the court as the Federal Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to grant such a decree. The respondent did not oppose the application. The central factual agreement between the parties was that at the time of their marriage ceremony in 2015, the respondent was already legally married to another person.

The court was required to determine whether the marriage was void *ab initio* due to bigamy, and to consider an application for costs made by the applicant. The applicant sought an order that the respondent pay her costs, arguing the proceedings were necessitated by his conduct.

Macmillan J applied section 23(1)(a) of the *Marriage Act 1961* (Cth), which provides that a marriage is void if either party was married to another person at the time of the marriage. The court was satisfied, based on the production of the respondent's previous marriage certificate and the subsequent divorce order, that the respondent was indeed married to another person when he purported to marry the applicant. The court noted that this conduct constituted an offence under section 94 of the *Marriage Act*. Regarding costs, while the applicant sought costs on the basis of the respondent's conduct, the court found the costs sought to be unreasonable and ordered the respondent to pay a fixed sum of $2000.00 towards the applicant's costs.