DISTRIBUTED BY VERITAS TRUST Tel: [263] [4] 794478 Fax & Messages [263] [4] 793592 E-mail: veritas@mango.zw Veritas makes every effort to ensure the provision of reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. Judgment No. SC 42/18 Civil Appeal No. SC 84/13 deceased person in the event that the person who had executed that will had divorced the person whom they had made a beneficiary in their will. In the absence of that express provision, the court a quo then looked at what could have been the intention of the deceased when he made the will in order to ascertain the validity of the will. The court found that since at the time of the making of will, the appellant and the late Amos Chirunda had only been customarily married and that union would not allow the appellant to inherit from her husband, the deceased’s intention was to avoid a situation where if he were to die he would die intestate thereby leaving his wife at the mercy of his relatives who would most probably enjoy the benefits of his estate to the exclusion of his wife. The court found that since the appellant and the late Amos Chirandu had since divorced, the intended purpose of expressly appointing the appellant as executor and heiress to avoid the likelihood of her losing the inheritance battle against her husband’s relatives should he die had since fallen away. Also, the court considered that the appellant had been awarded a significant settlement upon divorce. Hence, it could not have been the intention of the deceased to again have her benefit from the estate, reasoning thus: “The mischief that he had sought to circumvent in his will no longer applied with regard to the applicant as she was no longer his wife. It seems to me therefore that once the applicant ceased to be his wife, the will became invalid as it was no longer capable of enforcement.” The court a quo also dismissed the application on the basis of general law, holding that the will became void upon the termination of appellant and Amos Chirandu’s marriage in terms of the Marriage Act [Chapter 37] in 1978. It is common cause that the 6