This Act may be cited as the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Amendment Act, 1919, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

In this Act “person of enemy origin” means a person who was at any time prior to the twenty-eighth day of June, nineteen hundred and nineteen, a subject of any of the States of Germany, Austria, Turkey, or Bulgaria, whether or not such person is or has at any time been, by naturalization or otherwise, a subject of His Majesty.

In addition to the rights which the principal Act confers upon a wife to petition for divorce, a woman who is or was by birth a natural-born British subject and is resident in New Zealand (whether or not she is domiciled in New Zealand), and whose husband is a person of enemy origin, may present a petition to the Supreme Court praying that her marriage with her husband may be dissolved on the ground that her husband has at any time since the fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and fourteen, and whether before or after the commencement of this Act, left New Zealand and has remained continuously absent from New Zealand for more than twelve months.

It shall not be a ground for refusing dissolution of the marriage that the husband has desired that his wife should-depart from New Zealand with him, or should join him in-another country, or that he has provided or is willing to provide for her maintenance in or out of New Zealand, or that the wife has consented to her husband’s departure from New Zealand.

Personal service of a petition presented pursuant to the provisions of this Act shall not be necessary, but such notice by letter or advertisement or otherwise as the Court may direct in each case to be substituted for service shall be given to the respondent of the presentation of the petition.

The Court may accept such evidence as it thinks fit, whether strictly legal evidence or not, that the husband is a person of enemy origin.

If the Court is satisfied on the evidence that the case for the petitioner has been proved, and does not find that the petition has been presented in collusion with the husband, the Court shall pronounce a decree dissolving the marriage.

Where a person of enemy origin is married (whether before or after the passing of this Act) to a woman who is or was by birth a natural-born British subject, the woman shall in all cases be the guardian of the children of the marriage (whether born before or after the passing of this Act) while they are minors, any law to the contrary notwithstanding:

Provided that the Supreme Court may in any particular case direct that the other parent or any other person shall be the guardian or have the custody of all or any of such children.

Section twenty-one of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from paragraph (b) of subsection one the word “five,” and substituting the word “three.”

The Imperial Act, the Short Title of which is the Matrimonial Causes (Dominion Troops) Act, 1919, conferring jurisdiction on competent Courts in the United Kingdom in matrimonial causes instituted by or against members of His Majesty’s Forces, shall apply to New Zealand as from the passing of this Act.

This Act (except the two last preceding sections which shall come into operation on the passing of this Act) shall come into operation on a date to be named in that behalf in a Proclamation to be issued by the Governor-General.