Re: Pension benefits accrued prior to marriage in event of judicial separation/divorc
The judge can take anything into account. The judges primary concern is the childrens welfare, and after that it's trying to ensure a fair distribution between the spouses taking all circumstances into account.
In the hypothetical situation where a person has been paying into a pension for 20 years prior to the marriage and the marriage only lasts 2 years, it would be patently unfair to split it 50:50, so the argument should be made. At the very least, it's something that the judge may take into consideration when dealing with the overall split of assets (e.g. he gets 50% of the pension value, but gets less of the money in the savings account).