Archive for the ‘courts’ tag
Ruling could herald the end of costly divorce disputes
And so the seven month wait is over and judgement has finally been delivered. A majority of 8 out of 9 members of the Supreme Court dismissed Mr Granatino’s appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal, which he said attached too much weight to the Pre-nuptial agreement between him and his former wife Ms Radmacher.
The result of this outcome is that Pre-nuptial agreements will have significant importance in determing the outcome of a financial application to the Court within divorce proceedings. What the judgement does not and cannot do, of course, is make Pre-nuptial agreements legally binding but it does take us much further towards this position in the future.
The case of Radmacher has established the principle that “the Court should give effect to a nuptial agreement that is freely entered into by each party with a full appreciation of its implications unless in the circumstances prevailing it would not be fair to hold the parties to their agreement” and this principle applies to all ‘nuptial’ agreements whether ‘pre’ or ‘post’.
Whilst a Pre-nuptial agreement is still not a watertight guarantee, it is certainly going to be worth having one!
All 195 paragraphs of the judgement can be found on the link below…
“Court delay is damaging to childen in care”
This was one of the headlines
on the BBC recently.
Whilst we do not take children cases which involve care proceedings, we do have experience dealing with Private Children matters such as Residence, Contact and other specific issues. It is true to say the process can be very lengthy and, in particular, if CAFCASS (Children And Family Court Advisory and Support Service) has been ordered by the court to prepare a report.
In some local courts, it can take CAFCASS 4-6 months to carry out their investigations and prepare a report, which means that the families involved may not be able to move forward. It is fully appreciated that CAFCASS are under-resourced and it is certainly not a criticism of them, but the outcome is still negative for children and families alike.
The position also appears to mean that in some cases the District Judges will simply not order such a report as CAFCASS is not available, but this can also have negative consequences. The reality of the situation is that if an Application has been made to the court to deal with a dispute between the parents, it usually means that one or both parents have significant concerns which should be addressed properly.
Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an answer as CAFCASS is far too stretched, under-resourced and under-staffed and cannot cope with the number of cases, both private and care proceedings, which are being referred on to them.
Does our new Government have any solutions?
