NO EQUAL SHARE OF RIGHT TO ASSETS AFTER DIVORCE: SUPREME COURT.
After divorce, couples claim equal share and/rights to assets.
Haron ototo Nyaingiri 
The Supreme Court of Kenya has ruled that divorcing couples have no equal rights to assets after divorce. In its ruling, the court asserts that in divorce each party should leave with the property one acquired during the union. However, the court ruled that a spouse may get more based on his or her contribution acquired matrimonial property.
The five judge bench led by The Deputy chief Justice Philomena Mwilu also held that a party in divorce must prove his/her contribution towards the acquistion of the matrimonial property in question. to enable the court determine the percentage of wealth on eis entitled to. They further said that this will be a case by case determination.
“While Article 45(3) of the Constitution deals with equality of the fundamental rights of spouses during dissolution of a marriage, such equality does not mean the re-distribution of proprietary rights or an assumption that spouses are automatically entitled to a 50% share by the fact of being married,” The Supreme Court Judges said.
“What amounts to a fair and equitable legal formula for the reallocation of matrimonial property rights at dissolution of a marriage and whether the same can be achieved by a fixed means of apportionment at a 50:50 ratio should be done in light of the circumstances of each individual case,” The judges added.
The judgement was as a result of a 13-old fight between Mr Joseph Ombogi Ogentoto and his ex-wife Martha Bosibori. The couple got married in 1990 and divorced in 2008. Mr Ogentoto moved to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeal ordered that the house in which he had lived with his ex-wife of 18 years and the rental units be shared equally between them at the ratio of 50:50.
“Again, and further to this, both spouses may also work and earn income, which inevitably, in most instances, always ends up being spent on the family unit. It may be the whole income, or a substantial part of it, but ultimately, a percentage of it goes into the family. This is the essence of Section 14 of the Matrimonial Property Act, 2013,” The Judges alluded further.
The five judge bench was consitituted by The deputy chief justice Philomena Mwilu, Justices Mohammed Ibrahim, Smokin Wanjala, Njoki Ndung’u and Isaac Lenaola.
