Wealthy spouses planning a divorce often seek to procure their divorces in foreign courts where there is no division of marital property or no significant financial discovery. One such method is to obtain a simple talaq divorce in a country such as Pakistan in which such divorces are effective under both civil and religious law. A talaq divorce involves the husband’s unilateral repudiation of his wife. After a waiting period of approximately three months to ensure that she is not pregnant, the husband’s third such repudiation is final and irrevocable.

In an important case concerning talaq divorces, the Supreme Court of Texas has overturned decisions below that had granted comity to a Pakistani Islamic talaq divorce. Azhar v. Choudhri,— S.W.3d —-, 2026 WL 2879758 (TX. S. Ct. (Sept. 25, 2026)).

The marriage was an arranged marriage in Pakistan between the husband, who had long lived in Texas, and his very young wife, who then lived in Pakistan. After their marriage, they lived in Texas, but the husband then sent the wife back to Pakistan by means of what the court described as a visa-related ruse. He then divorced her there Islamically after having given notice of the intended divorce only in a small, local Pakistani newspaper.

The wife did not learn of the divorce until two years later, at which time she challenged the divorce in the Pakistani courts, but her case was dismissed.

She then moved to Texas and sued there for divorce and for a share of the husband’s enormous marital assets. She lost in both the trial court and the first level of appeal. The Texas Supreme Court overturned those decisions, primarily because the husband had not provided adequate notice to the wife of the intended divorce, which was a fundamental element of due process.

It held that the notice requirement is not “a mere gesture,” but rather “a fundamental tenet of our justice system,” such that the “means employed” to effectuate notice “must be such as one desirous of actually informing the absentee might reasonably adopt to accomplish it.” It stated that “the notice in this case, involving five days of publication in a single obscure outlet, does not suffice,” and that notice by publication is “constitutionally inadequate” when it is both “possible and practicable” to provide more adequate warning.

It should be noted that the case was not decided on the basis of a Texas Rule of Civil Procedure that imposes procedural requirements whenever a party seeks to enforce a foreign judgment in Texas involving a marriage relationship, because the rule took effect after the divorce.

It should be further noted that the Court chose not to address other grounds upon which the Pakistani divorce might well not have been recognized, in whole or as to the financial consequences of the divorce.