A Justice at the Court of Appeal, Justice Alexander Osei Tutu, says a marriage is considered non-existent if it is not consummated.

According to him, for a marriage to be legally recognised, it must go beyond the legal processes and ceremonial aspects; it must be consummated through sexual intercourse.

He made this known while contributing to the topic 'Are You Sure You're Married?' on JoyNews' The Law on Sunday.

“A marriage is expected to be consummated. So if you go through the legal processes and after the wedding, there is no sex, the marriage will not be deemed to have been perfected.

"When the marriage is not consummated it is not complete, so there is no marriage,” he explained.

He further clarified that even if a couple has lived together for over a year and has fulfilled all other marital requirements, the absence of consummation means that, legally, the marriage does not exist.

On the back of this, the judge indicated that if such a marriage is brought before the court, it will be declared null and void.

Justice Tutu also distinguished between the two legal methods of ending a marriage: dissolution and annulment.

According to him, dissolution, commonly known as divorce, applies when a marriage has gone through all the necessary processes and is legally recognised, but the parties wish to part ways.
In contrast, he noted that annulment applies when a key element of marriage, such as consummation, is missing.

In such cases, he said, ", if you go to court, you don’t go to court to dissolve it, you go to court for the court to declare that the marriage never existed in the first place in the eyes of the law and that is what we call annulment.”

Justice Tutu will be one of the speakers at the much anticipated Marriage Governance Conference 2024, which is being organised by Marry Right Ghana Limited.

The event will come off on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, at the British Council from 9 am to 3 pm.