DISTRIBUTED BY VERITAS TRUST Tel: [263] [4] 794478 Fax & Messages [263] [4] 793592 E-mail: veritas@mango.zw 13 Veritas makes every effort to ensure the provision of reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. Judgment No. SC 37/18 Civil Appeal No. SC 433/16 short, it was argued that, in the absence of a rescission, the parties could not revisit what was agreed upon in terms of the consent paper. [25] The respondent, in my view, is wrong in making the above submission. Firstly, the consent document itself provides in paragraph 4.3 for the occasional review of maintenance. This was an express term of the consent order which the parties agreed upon. An application for a variation of maintenance was therefore contemplated by the parties. Further, s 7 (1) (b) of the Matrimonial Causes Act [Chapter 5:13] provides for the payment of maintenance, whether by way of a lump sum or by way of periodical payments, in favour of one or other of the spouses or child of the marriage. Section 7 (5) of the Act allows a court, in granting a decree of divorce in accordance with a written agreement between the parties to, inter alia, make an order for the payment of maintenance. This is what happened in this case. The consent paper was, by consent of the parties, incorporated as part of the order of the High Court. Section 9 of the Act, in turn, allows a court, on good cause shown, to vary any order made in terms of s 7. [26] The consent paper signed by the two parties was incorporated as part of the order of the court a quo. In terms of s 9 of the Act the maintenance awarded can be varied without the need to first revoke the consent given in that paper. Whilst it is clear that the consent paper records a compromise reached by and between the parties, the agreement is however regulated by statute once incorporated as an order of court. The submission by the respondent that there was need for a formal withdrawal of the consent therefore has no substance, viewed both from the terms of the consent paper itself and at law.