GONASWARI A/P THEYAGASON v RAJAN A/L KRISHNAN

Case Significance

Addresses whether a divorce petition may proceed where the respondent failed to file an Answer within the court's timeline and counsel failed to attend, with reference to the professional duties of counsel to be ready and to give notice before seeking a postponement.

This High Court (Johor Bahru, Family Division) decision concerns a divorce petition in which the court had to consider the consequences of a party's failure to comply with the court's directions. The petitioner had filed a divorce petition seeking, among other things, the dissolution of the marriage, orders as to the custody, care and control of a child with reasonable access, maintenance for the youngest child, and orders for the sale of the matrimonial properties with the proceeds, after deduction of expenses, to be divided equally, or alternatively liberty for the petitioner to purchase the matrimonial properties at market value.

The difficulty that arose was procedural. The respondent failed to file an Answer to the petition within the timeline set by the court, and the respondent's solicitor also failed to attend court on 15 April 2025. The background, gathered from the cause papers filed in chronological order, was that the parties had been legally married before the Registrar of Marriages in November 2001 and had children of the marriage. The question the court addressed was whether it could allow the divorce petition to proceed in light of the respondent's failure to comply with directions, including the failure to file the Answer by the court's deadline.

In addressing that question the court referred to the professional obligations of counsel under the rules of practice, including the duty of an advocate and solicitor not to accept a brief unless reasonably certain of being able to appear and represent the client, not ordinarily to withdraw from an accepted engagement without sufficient cause and reasonable notice, and to make every effort to be ready for trial on the day fixed, applying only for a postponement for good and cogent reasons and, except in an emergency, only on adequate notice to the other side. The judgment illustrates how a family court approaches a divorce petition where the respondent has failed to file an Answer within time and counsel has failed to attend, and the professional standards expected of counsel in that situation.