Justice Evrol Mariette Peters, however, said the petition did not exempt the petitioner, identified as WEI, from accountability for marrying the woman without divorcing his first wife.

“Since the second marriage was registered under the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act, Sections 5 and 7 of the legislation as well as Section 494 of the Penal Code come into play,” Peters said in a 12-page judgment released last week.

Under Section 494 of the Penal Code, any non-Muslim person who remarries without divorcing their spouse commits bigamy, an offence punishable by a jail term of up to seven years and a fine.

WEI registered the second marriage to MEI in 1992 without divorcing his first wife, FEI, whom he married in 1978. Both women are Taiwanese nationals.

The first marriage was legally registered at a national registration department office in Kedah. In May 1992, he registered his second marriage at the High Commission of Malaysia in Hong Kong, but without obtaining a formal divorce from FEI.

WEI only divorced his first wife in 2012, 20 years after his second marriage.

He sought an annulment of the second marriage on grounds that it was void ab initio (invalid from the outset) since it had been contracted while his first marriage was valid and subsisting.

The annulment was to enable him to remarry his second wife, MEI, legally.

Peters said WEI’s claim that he mistakenly believed he was divorced from his first wife before entering into the second marriage was difficult to accept as a credible defence and was an affront to common sense.

She said divorce was a formal legal process that requires specific, documented steps, including legal filings and a court-issued decree, none of which can be reasonably assumed or overlooked.

Such a process, she said, was inherently clear and official, making it implausible that a person could simply misunderstand their marital status, especially over several years.

She said WEI conveyed that his primary motivation for filing the annulment petition was to formally invalidate the marriage with MEI, a step he considered crucial for reclaiming both his personal integrity and legal standing.

She noted that he had displayed a strong desire to “put things right”, demonstrating a clear awareness of the complexities and far-reaching legal consequences that stemmed from his previous marital decisions.

“In my view, WEI’s rationale for seeking the annulment was devoid of genuine nobility or moral integrity.”

Peters said it was indisputable that WEI had committed bigamy by marrying MEI while still legally married to FEI, an act that not only violated the law but also severely compromised any claim he might have to honour or virtue in his motivations.

She said rather than a demonstration of moral responsibility, this annulment petition appeared to be more an effort to escape the legal consequences of his prior misconduct, rendering any appeal to ethical motivations hollow.