The Court of Appeal yesterday confirmed a judgment of the First Hall of the Civil Court which had found that a marriage was valid despite allegations of the wife's bisexuality.

The court heard that in January the first court had dismissed a writ filed by the husband for a declaration of nullity of his marriage celebrated in 1981. The man had claimed that his consent and that of his wife to the marriage was marred by a serious lack of discretion of judgment of marriage and its essential rights and obligations.

Furthermore, he had claimed that the consent was flawed and both spouses had positively excluded marriage itself or one of its essential elements.

In its judgment, the first court had declared that, despite the admission on the part of the wife to the husband's allegations, it still had to hear the evidence produced and it had to be convinced that there was an objective case for the marriage to be declared null. This was due to the fact that the law presumed all marriages to be valid and because the institute of marriage was considered to be a matter of public order.

According to the husband there had been sexual problems in the marriage. He further alleged that his wife had had a relationship with another man and also with a woman. However, the first court declared that although these relationships had been proven in the sense that witnesses had declared that the wife had been in the presence of such persons, it was not clear how these facts could have influenced the parties' consent at the time their marriage was contracted.

These facts, the court ruled, could give rise to a personal separation between the parties but did not lead to the marriage being declared null.

The parties had two children and it was therefore clear that they had established a sexual relationship between themselves.

Both the husband and the wife appealed from this judgment to the Court of Appeal composed of Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Joseph D. Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph A. Filletti.

According to the husband, the wife's bisexuality gave rise to the nullity of the marriage as her consent had been vitiated by a psychological anomaly that rendered it impossible for her to perform the essential obligations of marriage.

The wife, on her part, submitted that the marriage was null because the husband suffered from a personality disorder.

In its judgment, the Court of Appeal declared that after examining all the evidence produced before the first court, it could not conclude that the parties' consent was vitiated by some serious lack of discretion of judgment at the time of the marriage. Even if it resulted that the wife had a lesbian relationship, this fact, of itself, did not mean that at the time she exchanged her vows with her husband her consent was vitiated.

The court concluded by dismissing the appeals and by confirming the judgment of the first court.

The Court of Appeal further ordered the wife to pay double costs in respect of her appeal on the basis that she had claimed that the first court had not made a proper evaluation of the evidence she had produced.

The appellate court declared that this appeal was frivolous for the wife had not produced any evidence in the court of first instance.