Divorce is expensive, a minimum of ¢10,000 needed to start proceedings – Legal Practitioner

Private Legal Practitioner Christian Lebrecht Malm-Hesse has revealed that divorce is expensive.

He said people are trapped in bad marriages because they lack the money to go through the divorce proceedings.

According to him, on the average, one needs a minimum of not less than Ten Thousand Cedi (GHC 10,000) to commence divorce proceedings in Ghana. The Ghana Bar Association has from April 2022 issued a new scale of fees for lawyers which then means that the cost of divorce proceedings would go up further.

“The ten thousand is even an old price and that is when the case is so simplistic. Depending on which lawyer or law firm you will go to, the price could go up. Aside from that, there is an incidental cost which the Ghana Bar Association says should be paid separately from the legal fee. It covers filing fees and transportation fare for each time that lawyer comes to court on the matter” lawyer Malm-Hesse stated.

He disclosed to Helen Appiah-Ampofo on 3FM Sunrise Morning show that the number of divorce cases is fast rising in Ghana and emphasized that it is easy to get married but extremely difficult to go through a divorce proceeding.

“Aside you paying a lot of money to the lawyers for that, it is emotionally absorbing, traumatizing and it is not easy for both the man and woman hence as lawyers we turn ourselves into pastors, counselors and everything for either side to go through but for some it is bitter from the beginning to the end. It is poisonous.” He stressed.

The family lawyer indicated that all divorce cases he has witnessed come with a bitter bite and likened the divorce process to the uprooting of a tree. It has to be pushed and pulled to all the sides to weaken the grounds before it can be pulled out.

He explained that, as the lawyer drafts the petition, the petition itself is like a knife dragged through the heart of the other party because things that are not palatable and things that were done in private between the couple that the world should not know are going to be said. That is why divorce proceedings are heard in chambers.

Mr. Malm-Hesse stated that the divorce and matrimonial court of the high court has become synonymous to a hospital or a maternity ward where you will see mothers, fathers and children crying.

He advised the young people who want to enter into marriage to understand that, nobody’s character is going to change because of marriage so the focus shouldn’t be on the strength of the person but on the person’s weaknesses to be convinced whether one can cope with that for the rest of one’s life.

Source: 3news.com