Due to a landmark High Court decision, men in Guyana can now apply to the High Court for their former wives to pay them maintenance and or alimony upon the dissolution or nullification of their marriage, and or while they wait for the marriage to be dissolved or nullified. Previously, only women could make such an application.
This new reality is the result of a decision of the High Court of the Supreme Court of Guyana in a recent decision in Application by Sam David Aaron 2023-HC-DEM-FDA-244. In that case, the court was asked to determine whether section 14 of the Matrimonial Causes Act, Cap 45:02, Laws of Guyana, which (as written previously) allowed women to ask a court to compel their husbands to provide alimony or maintenance to them in certain circumstances, violated his fundamental rights provided for under the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana because it only allowed women to apply for maintenance and or alimony against their husbands.
