Choong Kek Foh (MA-33-21-04/2026)

On the face of the Malaysian register, the Petitioner is a married man. In truth, and by the final judgment of a competent foreign court, he has not been married since 14.01.2020. This petition is about closing that gap and it is a gap in which many Malaysians stand. A person who marries abroad, registers the marriage under the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 (Act 164) ("the Act" or "Act 164"), and is later divorced by a competent foreign court remains, upon the Malaysian record, married until the foreign decree is carried onto the register. Such a person cannot have his true status recorded; nor may he safely remarry, for the Act exacts of every intending spouse a declaration that there is no lawful impediment and no subsisting marriage — paragraphs 16(1)(c) and (d) and, where the marriage is to be solemnized by religious ceremony, the statutory declaration under section 22(3) — and section 38 makes an intentionally false declaration punishable with imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, a fine not exceeding three thousand ringgit, or both. So long as the register misstates his status, an honest declaration wears the appearance of a false one. This petition is decided with that wider predicament in view.

The Petitioner accordingly seeks declaratory relief under section 107(3) of the Act, read with Order 15 rule 16 of the Rules of Court 2012: the recognition, for the purposes of the law of Malaysia, of a decree of divorce granted by the Family Justice Courts of the Republic of Singapore, and a consequential order enabling the Registrar General of Marriages to register that decree upon the Malaysian register. The petition is not opposed; no respondent has been named and none has appeared. It has been determined upon the Petition (Enclosure 1), the Petitioner's affidavit verifying the Petition (Enclosure 2), the Petitioner's affidavit in support together with the exhibits marked "A" and "B" (Enclosure 3), and the Petitioner's bundle of authorities dated 29.06.2026 (Enclosure 6), which places before the Court, among other materials, the published guidance of the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara to which I refer below.

Though its occasion is administrative the register will not be corrected without an order of this Court the petition raises a single dispositive question: whether the Singapore decree is to be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia. That question is anterior to, and independent of, the machinery of registration in section 107(3), which presupposes recognition and attaches to it a registration consequence; it is answered by the Court's jurisdiction over status and by the settled principles governing the recognition of foreign divorces. Two subsidiary questions follow: first, whether section 107(3) confined in terms to "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia" is the appropriate registration gateway for a marriage solemnized in Singapore and afterwards registered under the Act at the Malaysian High Commission; and secondly, the form of relief that ought to follow. I set out the material facts and the governing framework before turning to each.

The material facts are not in controversy. They rest upon the Petition, the Petitioner's verifying affidavit, and the Petitioner's affidavit in support with the exhibits to it.

The Petitioner, Choong Kek Foh, and Chia Siew Chin were married to one another by a marriage solemnized on

10.2000 at Singapore, in accordance with the law of Singapore. The marriage is evidenced by Singapore marriage certificate No. 661434 dated 25.10.2000, the particulars of which appear upon the extract exhibited as Exhibit "A". [6] That marriage was afterwards registered under Act 164 at the Malaysian High Commission in Singapore on 04.03.2002. The registration is evidenced by the extract of the register of foreign marriages, issued under Act 164 by the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara on 22.04.2026 and exhibited as Exhibit "A". The extract records the place of the marriage as Singapore, the marriage as contracted in accordance with law, the instrument of proof as the said Singapore marriage certificate, and the registration as effected at the Malaysian High Commission, Singapore, on 04.03.2002. [7] The Petitioner is a citizen of Malaysia; his Malaysian identity card is No. 720505-06-5009. He deposes that he resides at No. 39, Jalan PJ 8, Taman Pengkalan Jaya, Bukit Katil, 75450 Melaka, and that he is domiciled in Malaysia. By section 3(2) of Act 164 a citizen of Malaysia is deemed, until the contrary is proved, to be domiciled in Malaysia, and there is nothing before the Court to displace that presumption. [8] The marriage was dissolved by the Family Justice Courts of the Republic of Singapore in proceedings numbered Case No. FC/D 4530/2019, Document No. FC/FJ 202/2020, in which Chia Siew Chin was the plaintiff and the Petitioner the defendant. An Interim Judgment was granted on 09.10.2019. No sufficient cause having been shown to the contrary within three months, that Interim Judgment was made final on 14.01.2020. The dissolution is evidenced by the Certificate of Final Judgment (Divorce) issued by the Registrar of the Family Justice Courts, dated 14.01.2020 and exhibited as Exhibit "B". The Certificate certifies that the marriage solemnized on 25.10.2000 at Singapore between the parties is dissolved, and that the Interim Judgment granted on 09.10.2019 was made final on that date. [9] The Petitioner deposes that he has been advised, and believes, that an order of this Court is required to enable the Registrar General of Marriages to register the Certificate of Final Judgment (Divorce) in accordance with section 107(3) of Act 164, so that the record of the marriage held upon the Malaysian register may be updated. That advice reflects, and is borne out by, the published practice of the Registrar General himself: the official portal of the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara, Kementerian Dalam Negeri, exhibited at pages 10 to 11 of the Petitioner's bundle of authorities (Enclosure 6), states in terms that a Declaration Order of the High Court of Malaysia ("Perintah Deklarasi daripada Mahkamah Tinggi Malaysia") is required for all marriages registered under Act 164 where the divorce occurred abroad. That administrative requirement is the practical occasion of the petition. [10] By the Petition dated 24.04.2026 and presented on 30.04.2026 the Petitioner accordingly prays for — (a) a declaration that the parties were divorced on 14.01.2020 by the Family Justice Courts of the Republic of Singapore in the said proceedings, and that the Certificate of Final Judgment (Divorce) dated 14.01.2020 be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia; (b) an order that the Registrar General of Marriages be empowered to register the said Certificate of Final Judgment (Divorce) in accordance with section 107(3) of Act 164; (c) no order as to costs; (d) such further or other order as the Court thinks fit; and (e) liberty to apply. C. ISSUES FOR DETERMINATION [11] The following issues arise for determination:

the source and propriety of the Court's jurisdiction to grant the declaration sought, and the Petitioner's standing to seek it;

(ii) whether, applying the principles by which the law of Malaysia recognises foreign divorces, the Singapore decree should be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia the dispositive question;

(iii) whether section 107(3) of Act 164 is the appropriate gateway for registration, given that the marriage was solemnized in Singapore and registered under the Act at the Malaysian High Commission that is, the proper meaning and reach of the words "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia"; and

(iv) what relief, if any, ought to follow. D. GOVERNING LAW AND FRAMEWORK [12] Section 107 of Act 164 provides for the maintenance of the register of divorces and annulments. By section 107(1) the Registrar General is to maintain such a register and to enter in it the prescribed particulars of all decrees of divorce and annulment sent to him under subsection (2) or for which application is made under subsection (3). By section 107(2) every court which grants a decree of divorce or annulment is to send one certified true copy of the decree to the Registrar General for registration. [13] The provision directly in point is section 107(3), which provides: "Where a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia is dissolved or annulled by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction outside Malaysia, either of the parties may apply to the Registrar General for the registration of such decree and the Registrar General, on being satisfied that the decree is one which should be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia, shall register that decree." [14] Section 107(4) completes the scheme. Where a decree of divorce or annulment, wherever granted, has dissolved a marriage which was solemnized in Malaysia and registered under the Act, the Registrar General, on registering the decree, is to cause the entry in the register of marriage relating to that marriage to be marked with the word "Dissolved", together with a reference to the proceedings in which the decree was granted. [15] Two features of section 107(3) govern the analysis. First, the provision operates only upon "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia" that has been "dissolved or annulled by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction outside Malaysia". Those are the conditions of its engagement. Secondly, the duty which it casts upon the Registrar General is conditioned upon his being "satisfied that the decree is one which should be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia". That is the standard of recognition. [16] The application is also grounded upon Order 15 rule 16 of the Rules of Court 2012, under which the Court may make binding declarations of right whether or not any consequential relief is or could be claimed. The Court's power to make such declarations is conferred by paragraph 1 of the Schedule to the Courts of Judicature Act 1964, read with section 25(2) of that Act, and by section 41 of the Specific Relief Act 1950, which empowers the Court, in its discretion, to declare that a person is entitled to a legal character a description apt for a declaration as to matrimonial status and is regulated by Order 15 rule 16. The administrative requirement to which the Petitioner deposes that an order of this Court be first obtained is not itself a source of law; it is the practical fact which gives the Petitioner a real interest in the declaration he seeks. It is necessary to distinguish two things which the petition tends to run together. The first is the recognition of the foreign divorce whether the law of Malaysia treats the parties as divorced. The second is the registration of that divorce upon the Malaysian register the administrative act which section 107(3) commits to the Registrar General. Section 107(3) does not create the rule by which a foreign divorce is recognised; it assumes that a foreign decree may be "recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia" and directs the Registrar General to register it once he is satisfied that it is. The rule of recognition lies elsewhere in the principles of the conflict of laws by which the courts of Malaysia have long determined the effect of foreign matrimonial decrees, principles which Act 164 itself, in section 47, adopts as its touchstone by directing the court to act conformably to the principles applied by the High Court of Justice in England in matrimonial proceedings. It follows that the Court's power to declare the Singapore decree recognised is not dependent upon section 107(3) at all. It rests upon the Court's jurisdiction over status and its power to grant binding declarations. That is the true source of the relief sought in prayer (a), and it is available whether or not section 107(3) is the correct registration gateway. [18] The construction of the words "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia", which arises only in relation to registration, falls to be undertaken purposively. Section 17A of the Interpretation Acts 1948 and 1967 requires that a construction which promotes the purpose or object underlying the Act be preferred to one which does not. The object of section 107 is the maintenance of an accurate register of marriages and their dissolutions. The provision must be read within the statutory matrix of which it forms part the definition of "marriage register" in section 2, the registration of marriages solemnized abroad under section 31, the solemnization of marriages at Malaysian missions under section 26, and the legal effect of registration under section 34 and in the light of the settled presumption that Parliament does not intend the machinery it enacts to be rendered futile. I return to that construction below. [19] The centre of gravity of this petition lies in the recognition of the Singapore decree. The construction of "solemnized in Malaysia" bears only upon the route by which the register is corrected, and not upon the anterior and dispositive question whether, in the eyes of the law of Malaysia, the parties are divorced. I turn to the analysis. E. ANALYSIS AND DETERMINATION Jurisdiction and Standing [20] The Petitioner is a citizen of Malaysia who, by section 3(2) of Act 164, is deemed to be domiciled here. He is one of the two parties to the marriage the dissolution of which he asks the Court to recognise. Section 107(3) permits "either of the parties" to apply for registration of the foreign decree; the Petitioner is plainly within that class. His domicile in Malaysia locates the matter properly within the jurisdiction of this Court. [21] It is convenient to note the true procedural character of the application. Section 107(3), read literally, contemplates an application to the Registrar General, and not to the Court; the Registrar General is the officer upon whom the duty to register is cast. The Petitioner comes before the Court because, upon the requirement to which he deposes, the Registrar General will not register the foreign decree without a prior order of this Court. As explained at [17], the Court's function in that setting is declaratory: it determines the recognition question which section 107(3) presupposes, and its determination supplies the very "satisfaction" upon which the Registrar General's duty to register depends. The declaratory jurisdiction under Order 15 rule 16 of the Rules of Court 2012 is apt for that purpose, and the Petitioner's need to meet that requirement furnishes the real interest which a claim for declaratory relief requires. Nor is that requirement a matter of informal administrative stance: it is the Registrar General's own published practice, exhibited at Enclosure 6, and its significance for the construction of section 107(3) is examined at [35] below. [22] The absence of a named respondent does not preclude relief. The order sought does not operate against an adverse party; it seeks the recognition of a status already conferred by a competent foreign court, at the instance of one of the parties to it, for the purpose of correcting a public register. No contradictor is necessary to the determination. Where declaratory relief as to status is sought without a contradictor, however, the Court scrutinises the material with corresponding care, and grants the declaration only where the foreign decree and the connecting facts are clearly established on the evidence. On the material before the Court, that threshold is met. Whether Section 107(3) Is Engaged: "Solemnized in Malaysia" [23] The first subsidiary question is whether section 107(3) is engaged. Its opening words impose a condition: the provision applies "where a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia is dissolved or annulled by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction outside Malaysia". Two conditions are stated. The second dissolution by a court of competent jurisdiction outside Malaysia is addressed at [41] to [44] below, where the competence of the Singapore court and the fact and finality of the dissolution are established. It is the first that requires attention. As a matter of grammar, the answer is supplied by the structure of the subsection itself. The subsection has a single subject — "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia" — and the words "is dissolved or annulled by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction outside Malaysia" are the predicate of that subject. The relative clause "which is solemnized in Malaysia" is restrictive: it qualifies "a marriage" and confines the subsection to marriages answering that description. The dissolution limb accordingly refers back to, and operates only upon, a marriage so qualified; the two conditions are cumulative, not alternative. Applying the literal rule — the ordinary and natural meaning of the words in their grammatical setting — section 107(3) is engaged only where the marriage dissolved or annulled abroad was itself solemnized in Malaysia. [24] On the evidence, the marriage was solemnized in Singapore, not in Malaysia. Exhibit "A" records the place of the marriage as Singapore and the proof of the marriage as the Singapore marriage certificate of 25.10.2000. The Certificate of Final Judgment (Exhibit "B") likewise records the marriage as having been solemnized at Singapore. Registration at the Malaysian High Commission in Singapore on 04.03.2002 was a distinct and later act. Under the Act, solemnization and registration are not the same thing: the one is the celebration of the marriage, the other its subsequent recording. The marriage was not solemnized within Malaysia. [25] Read with strictness, that conclusion would place the marriage outside the literal words of section 107(3). The difficulty with confining the provision to marriages physically celebrated within Malaysia is that it would produce a consequence which Parliament cannot have intended. The Act itself provides, in section 31, for the registration of foreign marriages; Exhibit "A" is issued under the Act for that very purpose. Section 104 of the Act, for its part, recognises a marriage contracted abroad as valid for all purposes of the law of Malaysia where its conditions are met; the validity of this marriage has never been in question. A foreign marriage so registered is entered upon the register maintained under the Act and becomes part of the Malaysian record. Yet, on the strict reading, a foreign marriage duly registered under the Act and afterwards dissolved abroad could never have that dissolution recorded under section 107(3), nor noted under section 107(4), because neither subsection would apply to it. Nor, on that reading, would any other provision supply the want. Subsection (2) casts its duty of transmission upon the court granting the decree, and a foreign tribunal owes no duty under Malaysian law to transmit its decrees to the Registrar General; subsection (3), so construed, would be closed. The consequence is stark: there would be no statutory route whatever by which the foreign dissolution of a marriage solemnized outside Malaysia — though that marriage stands duly registered under section 31 and is carried upon the Malaysian register — could ever be registered here. The Malaysian register would then be left to show, indefinitely and inaccurately, a marriage as subsisting which a competent court had dissolved. [26] The construction of those words does not, however, end with their bare geography. The expression "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia" takes its meaning from the Act in which it sits, and section 17A of the Interpretation Acts 1948 and 1967 requires the Court to prefer the construction which promotes the object of section 107 the maintenance of an accurate public record of marriages and of their dissolution. Three features of the statutory scheme point in one direction. First, within the Act the expression is not a purely territorial description: section 26(3) itself declares that a marriage solemnized at a Malaysian Embassy, High Commission or Consulate abroad "shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be a marriage solemnized in Malaysia". Parliament's own usage thus shows that the phrase identifies marriages which belong to the Malaysian registration system, and not merely marriages celebrated upon Malaysian soil. Secondly, a marriage registered under section 31 belongs to that system in the fullest sense: the Act commands its registration, prescribes the appearance of the parties and the proof to be produced, and directs by section 31(3) that the entries be bound together to constitute the Foreign Marriages Register in the keeping of the Registrar General. Such a marriage is carried upon the registers maintained under the Act no less than a marriage celebrated in Melaka or Kuala Lumpur. Thirdly, section 107 is the machinery by which those registers are kept true: subsection (2) reaches only decrees of Malaysian courts; subsection (3) is the sole conduit through which a foreign decree can reach the register; and subsection (4) directs that, upon registration of the decree, the entry relating to the marriage be marked with the word "Dissolved". Unless subsection (3) extends to every marriage which the Act itself carries upon its registers, the Act would maintain a register of foreign marriages which no decree of any court could ever correct — the very consequence, identified at [25], which Parliament cannot have intended. [27] I have not overlooked the argument to the contrary: that section 26(3), by expressly deeming one class of marriages celebrated abroad — those solemnized at Malaysian missions under section 26 — to be solemnized in Malaysia, impliedly excludes every other class, so that a marriage registered under section 31 remains outside section 107(3). The inference is not compelled, and I do not draw it. The deeming in section 26(3) has ample work of its own to do: a section 26 marriage is created by the Act itself upon foreign soil, and the deeming secures that the whole of the Act — its provisions as to validity, its matrimonial relief, and its offences, to which section 26(3) expressly extends subsection 7(2) — applies to that marriage as to a domestic one. It was not enacted with section 107 in view, and it is too slender a foundation for attributing to Parliament an intention to keep upon its register, in perpetuity and beyond correction, marriages which the Act has itself directed to be registered. An implication of exclusion is at best a presumption of intention, and it must yield where it would defeat the manifest object of the provision under construction. Between a construction which leaves the register permanently false and one which keeps it true, the latter is to be preferred. I therefore hold that the words "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia" in section 107(3) extend to a marriage which, though celebrated abroad, has been registered under the Act and is carried upon the registers maintained under it. The holding is, and is intended to be, a narrow one. It does not bring every foreign marriage within section 107(3): it extends only to a marriage which has been registered under the Act and therefore stands upon the registers which the Act itself creates. A foreign marriage never registered under Act 164 remains wholly outside the subsection, as it always was. The boundary which Parliament drew is respected; all that is decided is that the Act's machinery of correction runs to the Act's own registers. [28] In so holding, I am alive to the objection that a court which construes "solemnized in Malaysia" to reach a marriage registered under the Act may be accused of reading into the section words — "or registered under this Act" — which Parliament did not enact. The objection deserves, and now receives, a direct answer, for the line between interpreting an Act and amending it is real, and this Court must remain on the right side of it. Five considerations demonstrate that it does. [29] First, the Court adds no words to the subsection. What is being ascertained is the meaning which the enacted words — "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia" — bear within this Act. In Act 164 that phrase is not a bare statement of geography: Parliament itself has given it a statutory content, by deeming marriages celebrated at Malaysian missions abroad to be solemnized in Malaysia (section 26(3)) and by building section 107 around the registers which the Act directs to be kept. To read the phrase, in that setting, as identifying the marriages which the Act's registers hold is to select one of the meanings which the enacted words can fairly bear in their context. Selecting among the meanings words can fairly bear is interpretation; it is what courts do every day. [30] Secondly, the selection is not free but commanded. Section 17A of the Interpretation Acts 1948 and 1967 is itself an Act of Parliament, and it directs the courts to prefer the construction which promotes the purpose or object of the statute over one which does not. In preferring the purposive reading, the Court is not overriding the legislature; it is obeying it. [31] Thirdly, the construction invents no machinery and imposes no new duty. It creates no register, confers no power, and brings into the Act no marriage which Parliament left outside it. The marriage of these parties stands upon the Malaysian register because section 31 Parliament's own command put it there. All that the construction decides is that the machinery which Parliament built for keeping its registers true extends to the registers which Parliament directed to be kept. That honours the scheme; it adds nothing to it. Nor does the construction trench upon section 34 of the Act, which provides that a marriage is not rendered valid or invalid merely by reason of its having been or not having been registered: nothing here turns upon validity, and the construction concerns only the recording, upon the Act's own registers, of a dissolution already effected by a competent court. [32] Fourthly, the construction leaves the words of limitation with real work to do. It does not delete the condition: a marriage with no Malaysian record at all — neither solemnized in Malaysia, nor deemed by section 26(3) to be, nor registered under the Act remains wholly outside section 107(3). The phrase continues to mark the true boundary which Parliament drew: the boundary of the Malaysian registration system. [33] Fifthly, and conversely, it is the narrow reading which would do violence to the Act, for it attributes to Parliament an intention which no legislature could sensibly hold: that the Registrar General must maintain, indefinitely and without remedy, a register showing as subsisting marriages which competent courts have dissolved. As between a construction which makes the Act workable and one which stultifies it, the settled canons of interpretation themselves direct that the former be preferred. There is nothing adventurous in that conclusion; it is the ordinary discipline of statutory construction applied to an ordinary problem of statutory language. [34] Applying that construction, section 107(3) is engaged. The marriage was registered under section 31 at the Malaysian High Commission in Singapore on 04.03.2002 and stands upon the Foreign Marriages Register; it is a marriage which the Act carries upon its registers, and it therefore answers the first condition of the subsection. The second condition dissolution "by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction outside Malaysia" is made good by the findings at [41] to [44] below. The Petitioner, as one of "the parties", is entitled to apply to the Registrar General for the registration of the decree. The subsection then conditions the Registrar General's duty upon his being "satisfied that the decree is one which should be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia"; the declaration of this Court determines that very question, and supplies that satisfaction. Upon registration, section 107(4) completes the exercise: the entry in the register relating to the marriage is to be marked with the word "Dissolved", together with a reference to the Singapore proceedings. [35] The administrative practice of the Registrar General himself, placed before the Court in the Petitioner's bundle of authorities (Enclosure 6, pages 10 to 11), confirms that construction and puts its practical operation beyond doubt. The official portal of the Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara, Kementerian Dalam Negeri, on the updating of marriage records upon divorce or annulment ("Pengemaskinian Rekod Perkahwinan (Perceraian / Pembatalan)”，as updated on 29.06.2026)，states in terms: "Perintah Deklarasi daripada Mahkamah Tinggi Malaysia adalah diperlukan bagi semua perkahwinan yang didaftarkan di bawah Akta Membaharui Undang-Undang (Perkahwinan dan Perceraian) 1976 [Akta 164] dan perceraian berlaku di luar negara". In plain language: where a marriage registered under Act 164 has been dissolved abroad, the Registrar General will update the marriage record, and what he requires for that purpose is a Declaration Order of the High Court of Malaysia nothing less, and nothing else. Three things follow, and each may be simply stated. [36] First, the guidance speaks of marriages "registered under" the Act not of marriages celebrated in Malaysia. The officer whom Parliament charged with keeping the registers thus treats the decisive connection as the presence of the marriage upon the Malaysian register, and not the soil upon which the wedding was celebrated. That is exactly the construction of section 107(3) reached above. Upon the narrow territorial reading, this published guidance could not lawfully exist: section 107(3) could never apply to a marriage celebrated abroad; no order of any court could alter that; and the Registrar General would be inviting the public to make applications which he had no power to grant. An Act ought not readily to be construed so as to condemn as unlawful the settled, sensible and published practice of the very officer who administers it, when an available construction of its words sustains that practice. [37] Secondly, the guidance answers the question why, if section 107(3) were a gateway through which a party could simply walk, the Registrar General should insist upon a court order at all. The answer lies in what the subsection requires of him before he registers: he must be "satisfied that the decree is one which should be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia". Whether a foreign divorce should be recognised is a question of legal status did the foreign court have proper jurisdiction over the parties; is its decree final; was it fairly obtained; does anything about it offend the public policy of Malaysia and questions of that kind belong in a court of law, not at a registry counter. The Registrar General's insistence upon a prior declaration is therefore no sign that section 107(3) is closed to marriages such as this one. It is the responsible manner in which an administrative officer forms the satisfaction which the subsection demands of him: by having the judicial question decided where it belongs in the High Court and registering upon the strength of that decision. [38] Thirdly, the guidance places beyond argument the Petitioner's real and practical interest in the relief he seeks: upon the Registrar General's own published requirement, a declaration of this Court is the key which his own published practice prescribes. One caution must be repeated: the practice of an administrator cannot control the construction of an Act of Parliament, and it has not been permitted to do so here the construction stands, at [26] and [27], upon the language, scheme and object of the Act itself. But where the meaning so reached coincides exactly with the footing upon which the statutory machinery has in fact been administered, and published to the public, that coincidence is powerful confirmation that the construction is the workable one, and the one upon which the scheme was designed to run. The Court determines the status; the Registrar General records it; and section 107(3), so understood, is the hinge between the two. Recognition of the Singapore Decree [39] The dispositive question is whether the Singapore decree "is one which should be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia". It bears emphasis what the Court is, and is not, asked to do. It is not asked to dissolve a marriage: the marriage was dissolved, finally and by a competent court, in 2020, and no decree under Part VI of the Act is sought. It is asked to recognise an accomplished foreign dissolution, so that the Malaysian register may state the truth about it. The distinction matters, because the jurisdictional restrictions in sections 48 and 49 of the Act Malaysia domicile, with its limited statutory exceptions condition the power of this Court to grant a decree of divorce; they do not govern the anterior and different question whether a divorce validly granted abroad is to be recognised here. Nothing in this judgment enlarges the divorce jurisdiction of the Malaysian courts in any respect. [40] Recognition of a foreign divorce in the law of Malaysia is not automatic; it proceeds upon settled principles of the conflict of laws, which Act 164 in section 47 adopts as its touchstone. The orthodox foundation of recognition is domicile: a decree of divorce pronounced by the courts of the country in which the parties are domiciled is entitled to recognition. Through section 47 which directs this Court to act and give relief on principles conformable, as nearly as may be, to those upon which the High Court of Justice in England acts and gives relief in matrimonial proceedings two further bases, long established in that jurisprudence, apply alongside it: a foreign decree will be recognised where the foreign court assumed jurisdiction upon a basis which mirrors that which Malaysian law claims for its own courts (as, for example, jurisdiction founded upon a wife's ordinary residence, which section 49(1)(b) of the Act itself asserts for this Court); and a foreign decree will be recognised where the parties and the marriage had a real and substantial connection with the foreign forum, of which the domicile of a party is the paradigm instance. In every case the decree must be final and conclusive by the law of the forum which pronounced it; and recognition will be refused where the foreign court lacked jurisdiction in the international sense, where the decree was obtained by fraud or in breach of natural justice, or where recognition would be contrary to the public policy of Malaysia. The discipline of these principles is real, and the cautionary authority is Gurcharan Singh a/l Karnal Singh v Mninder Kaur a/p Piara Singh [2010] 6 MLJ 405, where the High Court refused to recognise a decree which a Malaysian husband had obtained in Arizona upon a residence of some three weeks, the marriage having been solemnized in Malaysia and the parties' Malaysian domicile persisting throughout: a decree collected from a forum with which the parties have no genuine connection will not dissolve, in the eye of Malaysian law, a marriage anchored here. It is against that framework its foundations, its extensions and its cautions alike that the Singapore decree falls to be measured. I apply it. [41] As to competence, the decree was granted by the Family Justice Courts of the Republic of Singapore. The parties and the marriage had a real and substantial connection with Singapore, of the kind which founds recognition. The connection is evident on the face of the exhibits: the marriage was solemnized in Singapore; both parties held Singapore identity documents; and the proceedings were regularly constituted in the Singapore court, in which the other party to the marriage, Chia Siew Chin, was the moving party. These are not connections assembled for the purpose of obtaining a divorce; they are the standing connections of the marriage itself: the country of its celebration, the country whose identity documents both spouses carried, and the forum in which relief was sought not by the Petitioner but by the other spouse. The posture is thus the converse of that which failed in Gurcharan Singh, where a Malaysian husband carried a Malaysian-solemnized marriage to a foreign court upon three weeks' residence. Here the marriage was made in Singapore; the Singapore-connected spouse invoked her own courts; and the Malaysian party answered those proceedings as defendant. Singapore's assumption of matrimonial jurisdiction in those circumstances mirrors, in substance, the jurisdiction which section 49(1)(b) of Act 164 claims for this Court in the converse case; and the parties and the marriage plainly had with Singapore a real and substantial connection. The competence of the Singapore court in the international sense is accordingly established on each of the bases identified at [40], and is not in question. [42] As to finality, the decree is final and conclusive. The Certificate of Final Judgment (Divorce), dated 14.01.2020 and issued by the Registrar of the Family Justice Courts, records that the Interim Judgment of 09.10.2019 was made final on 14.01.2020, no sufficient cause having been shown to the contrary within the prescribed period; it certifies that the marriage is dissolved and bears the formal indicia of an authentic order of that court. There is nothing before me to suggest that the decree remains open to challenge in Singapore. [43] As to impediment, none appears. The marriage was a monogamous marriage of the kind to which Act 164 applies, and was registered under the Act. Its dissolution by a competent foreign civil court is consistent with, and not repugnant to, the law of Malaysia. There is no suggestion that the decree was obtained by fraud, or in breach of natural justice, or that its recognition would offend any principle of public policy. The Petitioner's present domicile in Malaysia does not stand in the way of recognition: recognition turns upon the competence of the Singapore court at the time of its decree, which is established, and not upon the Petitioner's subsequent domicile. [44] It follows that the recognition standard is satisfied. This is the dispositive conclusion: by the principles which the law of Malaysia applies to foreign divorces, the Singapore decree is entitled to recognition, and the parties are to be treated as divorced with effect from 14.01.2020. The same findings dispose of the second condition of section 107(3) identified at [23]: the marriage has been dissolved by a decree of a court of competent jurisdiction outside Malaysia. The Relief Sought [45] The declaration sought in prayer (a) follows from the foregoing. The parties were divorced on 14.01.2020 by the Family Justice Courts of the Republic of Singapore in Case No. FC/D 4530/2019, Document No. FC/FJ 202/2020, and the Certificate of Final Judgment (Divorce) dated 14.01.2020 is entitled to recognition as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia. A declaration in those terms is appropriate. [46] Prayer (b) seeks an order that the Registrar General of Marriages be empowered to register the Certificate under section 107(3). It cannot be granted in those terms, for two short reasons. First, no empowerment is needed: the power — and, upon his satisfaction, the duty, for the subsection provides that he "shall register that decree" — is conferred by section 107(3) itself. Secondly, the Registrar General is not a party and has not been heard, and a mandatory order against a stranger to the proceedings would be wrong in principle. What the statutory scheme and the Registrar General's own published practice require is a declaration — the "Perintah Deklarasi daripada Mahkamah Tinggi" which that practice identifies — and this judgment supplies it. The recognition declared in prayer (a) determines the very matter upon which his satisfaction under section 107(3) depends; the marriage falls within the subsection for the reasons given at [34]; the decree is accordingly registrable; and section 107(4) prescribes what follows upon registration. Order (b) is framed as a declaration of that legal position, and nothing more. A sealed copy of this Order shall be served upon the Registrar General, with liberty to apply should any difficulty arise. [47] Prayer (c) seeks no order as to costs. As the petition is unopposed and concerns the correction of a public record at the instance of a party to the marriage, no order as to costs is the proper course, and it accords with the prayer. F. CONCLUSION [48] Drawn together, the petition presents, beneath its administrative occasion, a single dispositive question: whether a valid foreign dissolution of the parties' marriage is to be recognised in the law of Malaysia. Applying the settled principles by which this Court recognises foreign divorces, the answer is yes: the decree was pronounced by a court with which the parties and the marriage had a real and substantial connection, it is final and conclusive, and no impediment to its recognition appears. That conclusion suffices to found the declaration in prayer (a) and does not depend upon section 107(3). As to the correction of the register, the words "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia" in section 107(3), construed in the light of the scheme of the Act, extend to a marriage registered under the Act though celebrated abroad. Section 107(3) is accordingly engaged; the declaration of this Court supplies the satisfaction upon which the Registrar General's duty to register depends; and section 107(4) then directs the marking of the register. That construction is, moreover, the very footing upon which the Registrar General's published practice already proceeds, requiring of a party in the Petitioner's position precisely the declaration granted today. Having admitted the marriage to its register, the Act supplies the means of recording its dissolution. [49] The petition succeeds, and I make the orders that follow. G. ORDERS OF THE COURT [50] I make the following orders:

it is declared that Choong Kek Foh (NRIC No. 720505-06- 5009; Singapore Identity Card No. S7278617C) and Chia Siew Chin (Singapore Identity Card No. S7240121B) were divorced on 14.01.2020 by the Family Justice Courts of the Republic of Singapore in Case No. FC/D 4530/2019, Document No. FC/FJ 202/2020, and that the Certificate of Final Judgment (Divorce) dated 14.01.2020 issued by the Family Justice Courts of the Republic of Singapore is recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia;

it is declared that the said marriage, having been registered under section 31 of the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 (Act 164) at the Malaysian High Commission in Singapore on 04.03.2002, falls within section 107(3) of the Act; that, the recognition having been declared in order (a), the requirement of section 107(3) that the decree be one which should be recognised as valid for the purposes of the law of Malaysia stands satisfied; and that the said Certificate of Final Judgment (Divorce) dated 14.01.2020 is accordingly registrable by the Registrar General of Marriages under section 107(3) of the Act, whereupon the entry in the register relating to the said marriage shall be dealt with in the manner prescribed by section 107(4) of the Act;

a sealed copy of this Order shall be served upon the Registrar General of Marriages;

there shall be no order as to costs; and

there shall be liberty to apply. Postscript: The Case For Legislative Clarification [51] I add a postscript, obiter but, I hope, of use. The result in this petition has been reached by purposive construction of section 107(3), sustained by the scheme of the Act and confirmed by the practice of the Registrar General; yet a party in the Petitioner's position must still bring declaratory proceedings in the High Court to accomplish what is, in substance, the administrative updating of a public record. The source of that burden is textual: section 107(3) speaks of "a marriage which is solemnized in Malaysia", while the registers which the Registrar General keeps include, by sections 26 and 31, marriages celebrated abroad — the one class expressly deemed by section 26(3) to be solemnized in Malaysia, the other, registered under section 31, left to construction. The interplay of sections 26(3), 31 and 107 would benefit from legislative attention. An amendment extending section 107(3) — and, consequentially, section 107(4) — in terms to "a marriage solemnized in Malaysia or registered under this Act" would place the matter beyond argument, align the text of the Act with the practice already administered under it, and spare parties and the courts declaratory proceedings of this kind. Lest the recommendation be misunderstood, I make plain what such an amendment would and would not do. It would not change the law: for the reasons given at [26] to [38], section 107(3), upon its proper construction, already extends to a marriage which, though celebrated abroad, has been registered under the Act. What the amendment would do is write that meaning into the words of the section itself, so that every person who reads it — a party wishing to have a foreign divorce recorded, a registrar administering the Act, or an adviser consulted upon it — sees the position at a glance, without recourse to the courts or to the principles of construction which this judgment has had to apply. It may be noted that when Parliament last returned to the Act — by the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) (Amendment) Act 2017 (Act A1546), which amended sections 3(3), 12, 51, 76 and 95 and introduced a new section 51A — section 107 was left untouched, so that the textual question resolved in this judgment remains upon the statute book. Whether and how to amend is, of course, a matter for Parliament alone; this Court does no more than respectfully draw the point to attention. Dated 10 July 2026 Annuity . (YA Dato' Sri Raja Segaran A/L S. Krishnan) (Judicial Commisioner) High Court Of Malaya Malacca High Court (MELAKA) Lawyer For Petitioner : Encik Lim Lee Hoon Tetuan Lim Lee Hoon & Co. Peguambela dan Peguamcara No. 136-A, Jalan Suria 2, Taman Malim Jaya, 75250 Melaka.