Source: https://dbfamilylaw.wordpress.com/2017/01/
Timestamp: 2019-03-20 21:31:11
Document Index: 720640085

Matched Legal Cases: ['EWCA ', 'UKSC ', 'Art 50', 'Art 50', 'Art 50', 'Art 50', 'Art 50', 'Art 50', 'Art 50', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ', 'EWCA ']

January | 2017 | dbfamilylaw
Posted in family proceedings	by dbfamilylaw
A new practice direction for on-line divorce
As the debate on the EU withdrawal bill rages in the House of Commons I reflect on the latest practice direction to be added to Family Procedure Rules 2010, namely FPR 2010 PD36D – Pilot Scheme: procedure for using an online system to generate applications in certain proceedings for a matrimonial order. PD36D does what it says in the title with the important omission – as I read it – that it does not tell someone who wants a divorce how to access the system so you can operate it. (I may be missing some obvious step, so I apologise in advance to any reader if that is right.)
The PD implies that it comes into operation on 25 January 2017 (is this what para 1.2(e) may mean?), though this is not stated. It represents a first step towards digitalisation of the procedure for dissolution of marriage and civil partnership (though it applies only to divorce at present). It ‘modifies’ two rules and some existing practice directions to do this.
This note is not intended in any way to question the aptness of introducing schemes such as this, to help simplify court procedures (though ‘I, Daniel Blake’, the Ken Loach film, reminds us that not every-one has access to a computer; or if they have, that they are particularly adept at using it. Allowance must be made for that). No, what I am concerned about is that schemes like this are introduced in a way that is lawful (I am not entirely sure that this one is entirely lawful, as I explain); and that when introduced they are clear.
Lawfulness of rule changes
There is a statutory provision (Crime and Courts Act 2013 s 75(4)) which enables the rule-makers – in this case Family Procedure Rules Committee – to make different rules for different areas; so this differential treatment of divorce petitions, by rule-makers, is fine. A practice direction is made by the President of the Family Division with agreement of the Lord Chancellor (Courts Act 2003 s 81; and see discussion in Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government v Bovale Ltd and anor [2009] EWCA Civ 171, [2009] 1 WLR 2274).
There is nothing to say a practice direction (which is a lesser statutory species) can alter a rule. (In the 1990s the then Lord Chancellor’s Department provided by practice direction for a selected group of county courts to have an ‘ancillary relief pilot scheme’ to try out a new procedure; but when it was pointed out to them that this could not – or should not – be done by practice direction they introduced proper rules, alongside a paragraph in Civil Procedure Act 1997 to enable pilot schemes to be set up).
Now PD36D says that where it ‘applies’ – though it is not clear from PD36D when it does apply – an ‘applicant [ie a petitioner] must’ complete all sections of the ‘application process set out in the online system’ (modified PD7A para 1.2). It then modifies the present PD7A to say that where the practice direction applies a petition in the ‘form generated by the on-line system referred to in that Practice Direction’ must be used. The problem comes full circle: what ‘form generated’ etc?
There are a number of references to ‘the online system’; but the practice direction makes no attempt to define what that means or to tell the prospective petitioner (‘applicant’) how to get into it.
Clarity and the on-line scheme
The rules must be ‘simple and simply expressed’ because that is what Courts Act 2003 s 75(5)(b) says. I doubt whether this practice direction is lawful (as explained above: the President using a practice direction to alter a rule, which is made by a statutory body); but nor is it ‘simple’ or particularly ‘simply expressed’ in a field where it must be designed to be used by private individuals proceedings without a lawyer. Yes, I know this was drafted over the President’ name, not that of the Committee; but he should adopt the same ‘simply expressed’ criterion, surely.
Apart from not telling a reader where to find ‘the on-line system’, whether it is compulsory or from when it runs, the scheme suffers from a number of further unclear aspects, such as:
It is designed to operate for divorces only. A divorce under Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 is started by a ‘petition’; yet the practice direction speaks always of an ‘application’ (I know that is what FPR 2010 Pt says; but the Act is the statutory expression which has priority).
The practice direction refers to a ‘matrimonial order’ when it means a decree of divorce.
The practice direction says documents required are on the on-line system (para 5.3); but does not say where the system is.
It would have been so easy for the person who drafted PD36A to have said:
this system applies to all divorces from [a date]
it is compulsory for such divorces
the system can be found at [link to site]
the petition must be accompanied by [documents needed].
Rules amended by a rule
And if I am right that you cannot use a practice direction to alter a rule, then it the rules should have been amended by another rule (which is not an onerous task). Someone may find that their on-line divorce is challenged by an awkward ex-spouse; that an Administrative Court judge will say that yes delegated legislation (ie Family Procedure Rules 2010) cannot be varied in this way; and then a decree (perhaps where papers were not properly served) will be rescinded. If that happens, any financial orders will have to be untangled.
It puts a duty on the adviser who is troubled by the legality of these rules. And I speak only a year or so after two family proceedings practice directions were held by the Supreme Court to be ultra vires the President (or his predecessor) who made them (see eg Wyatt v Vince [2015] UKSC 14, [2015] 1 FLR 972).
clarity of rules, divorce on-line, lawfulness of rule-making, practice direction	2 Comments
If Article 50, then only with reason…
Posted in EU withrawal	by dbfamilylaw
Mrs May and ‘the rule of reason’: some notes
[This is a holding note: further sections need to be added on ‘rule of reason’ and the consequences if Mrs May’s reason is not exercised, or is exercised unreasonably.]
It is too late to do much about MPs and what seems to be their minimal understanding of the meaning and consequences of a referendum; and thus to stop the passage of the Article 50 bill. This is the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill 2017 (the 2017 Bill) whose short title is: to confer power on the Prime Minister to notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU.
Once the bill is law – has been given Royal Assent – then the landscape changes for political to administrative. We are back to executive or government powers; and then anyone planning to trigger Art 50 (ie the Prime Minister, Mrs May), according to the United Kingdom ‘constitutional arrangements’, is an administrator. (In what follows ‘government’ and ‘executive’ will be used more or less interchangeably; and administrative law will be taken to apply to each.)
It is one of the cardinal rules of administrative law that anyone responsible for exercising a power must do so with reason. Parliament is sovereign; but the government – including Mrs May – is subject to the law (and as she has found already). Triggering Art 50 is one of the more significant exercises of any executive powers since the Second World War (going into Europe was sanctioned by Parliament). She has a decision to make. It is her decision, albeit with advice from a proportion of the June 2016 electorate in a referendum. She must make that decision within the terms of the ‘rule of reason’ (see Administrative Law (2014) Wade & Forsyth (11th Ed) at p 293: a leading text-book on this subject often quoted in the Supreme Court).
If Mrs May triggers Art 50, is she doing so with reason? If so what are her reasons? If she is not acting with reason, she can be stopped. If she triggers Art 50, but without express reason, can the clock be put back? Can her action be stopped, if taken without reason – and if this is acceptable to the wider EU community?
A meaning for the referendum
No-one in Parliament – including Mrs May – seems to know what the outcome of the referendum actually means. To act upon it, or – as she will do – to claim you are acting upon it, without knowing what it means, by definition is to act without reason. A doctor does not plunge a knife into a patient’s breast and think it will cure his or her heart: she needs extensive training to operate on a heart. So too with signing off Art 50. A high degree of understanding of the UK constitutional arrangements is needed; and this understanding is called for in an area – the consequences of referendums – which is, as yet, untrodden.
This note explains this proposition further, does so in the context of administrative law, and suggests what could be done about it.
European Union Referendum Act 2015 s 1 provided: ‘(1) A referendum is to be held on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union.’ The section went on to deal with dates and to set out the questions to be asked in English and in Welsh. In English this was:
And that was that: nothing was said about whether this was to bind the government; what was the meaning of a referendum in UK law; how long the effect of the answers was to last (eg as the members of the electorate on the roll changed); and so on.
Members of Parliament voted on the bill which lead to the 2015 Act, with the following House of Commons Briefing Paper Number 07212 of 3 June 2015 in mind. (If they did not read it does that make any difference to their approach now?) The briefing paper said of European Union Referendum Bill 2015-16:
This Bill requires a referendum to be held on the question of the UK’s continued membership of the European Union (EU) before the end of 2017. It does not contain any requirement for the UK Government to implement the results of the referendum, nor set a time limit by which a vote to leave the EU should be implemented. Instead, this is a type of referendum known as pre-legislative or consultative, which enables the electorate to voice an opinion which then influences the Government in its policy decisions. The referendums held in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1997 and 1998 are examples of this type, where opinion was tested before legislation was introduced. The UK does not have constitutional provisions which would require the results of a referendum to be implemented, unlike, for example, the Republic of Ireland, where the circumstances in which a binding referendum should be held are set out in its constitution.
That bill and the 2015 Act lead to the referendum on 23 June 2016. And in the light of this, and the 2017 Bill (if enacted) leads to the power in the Prime Minister to trigger Art 50.
Referendum and the courts
In R (Miller & Anor) v The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2016] EWHC 2768 (Admin) (the first of the two EU withdrawal cases) the Divisional Court said this of the 2015 Act and the referendum:
[108] We emphasise that the Secretary’ of State’s position on this part of the argument and the observations in the preceding paragraphs relate to a pure legal point about the effect in law of the referendum. This court does not question the importance of the referendum as a political event, the significance of which will have to be assessed and taken into account elsewhere.
By ‘elsewhere’ it must be assumed they meant by Parliament or the Government (the executive). There is no evidence that the meaning of the referendum has been ‘taken into account’ in the 2016 bill. The Government have given us no indication as to what Mrs May thinks is its meaning. Plenty of MPs think they are bound in some way by the ‘will of the people’. If the people, like the briefing paper, thought they were tendering advice then this is developing well beyond a serious constitutional misunderstanding with substantial consequences.
Supreme Court and meaning of referendum:…
Administrative law and the rule of reason
Short essay on ‘rule of reason’:
Start from Padfield v Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food [1968] AC 997, [1968] 2 WLR 924
Unfettered discretion: contradiction in terms
Special care for ministerial decisions
Conclusion: reasonable to trigger Art 50?
‘Will of the people in referendum’
Burke’s theory: needs revisiting in 2017: mandate or representative
No account taken of situation in 2017: May’s blinkered approach is the antithesis of reason
Is an electorate which votes in a simple binary elect capable of ‘reason’ in the administrative law sense of the term?
© David Burrows, Paris January 2017
Article 50, Brexit, EU Notification of Withdrawal Bill, judicial review, rule of reason	4 Comments
Common law duty to provide reasons
In a passage which applies to any common law judgment, and certainly to any in civil or family proceedings Lord Phillips MP (in English v Emery Reimbold & Strick Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 605, [2002] 1 WLR 2409 at §[118]): ‘while it is perfectly acceptable for reasons to be set out briefly in a judgment, it is the duty of the Judge to produce a judgment that gives a clear explanation for his or her order’.
This case and the principles encapsulated in it were recently referred to in Iqbal v Iqbal [2016] EWCA Civ 19 (judgment: 25 January 2017). In that case, the Court of Appeal was confronted by an appeal by a husband who had been committed to prison on evidence which they felt was inadequate. Basic procedural rules were not followed. The husband had not been present when an ancillary relief order was made and on the wife applicant’s evidence only. A committal order was made on a judgment summons application involving just under £4M, as was explained by the Sir Ernest Ryder, Senior President of Tribunals in the Court of Appeal.
Inadequate evidence on judgment summons application
In his judgement Sir Ernest dealt with the evidence and judgment in the proceedings which lead to the order and which Mrs Iqbal wanted to enforce. Despite its inquisitorial functions, the court failed to make further inquiries as to the husband’s means; but proceeded on assumptions:
[20] Financial remedy proceedings in the Family Court are in part inquisitorial, however hotly contested the issues may be between the parties. The court has an obligation to satisfy itself about the statutory factors that are relevant to the decision it makes or the settlement it approves given that the parties have an obligation of full and frank disclosure. At any stage during the final hearing the judge could have asked about the existence and content of the basic evidential materials, for example the husband’s Form E. He did not. The manner in which assumptions were made by the judge can be ascertained from this exchange on the transcript between the judge and the wife:
Judge Brasse: He has not provided any information in this case at all.
Ms Iqbal: Yes
No attempt was made by the judge to test the wife’s evidence:
[21] … The wife was not sworn and relied upon her submissions and signed documents which contained no truth recital. There was no real attempt by the court to test anything that the wife said. The process of determining that the husband had assets of £6,440,000 was little more than an inadequate (and it appears incorrect) computational exercise based upon what the wife said to the judge in court. In one exchange the judge says “What is the evidence? (And) you have not got it” and in another he comments: “I appreciate that you do not have any actual original documents to support these, but you assert that…”. The judge was on notice of the evidential failings inherent in the process that was being conducted and yet he failed to act upon his own warnings.
The judge provided no judgment, nor any reasons, for what he had decided:
[22] The judge failed to give a formal judgment with the consequence that this court has had to analyse the transcript to ascertain whether there is a clear thread within the discussion which identifies the conclusions to which the judge came and sufficient reasoning for the same…. It should not be taken as read that this court will undertake that process lightly given the clear strictures of this court which apply as much to family proceedings as any other civil process: see English v Emery Reimbold & Strick Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 605. Parties are entitled to a determination, no matter how short, that is capable of being scrutinised so that it can be understood and so that advice can be given about it and ultimately an appeal court can ascertain whether it was sufficient in law and on the facts.
It is this passage and the references to reasons for a judgment which leads to this note. In English v Emery Reimbold & Strick Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 605, [2002] 1 WLR 2409 the Court of Appeal, in a judgment of the court (Lord Philips MR, Latham and Arden LJJ) and under a heading ‘The requirement to give reasons under common law’, said that ‘[15] There is a general recognition in the common law jurisdictions that it is desirable for Judges to give reasons for their decisions’. This is not only so that parties may be clear as to whether they have grounds of appeal, and that an appellate court knows how a judge has reached his/her decision, but also:
That justice may ‘be seen to be done;
If decisions are to be acceptable to the parties and to members of the public;
A requirement to give reasons may help to concentrate a judges mind; and
Reasons may also provide an important means under the common law for setting precedents for the future
So, said the court, to put it at its simplest (§[16]): ‘justice will not be done if it is not apparent to the parties why one has won and the other has lost’; and the ‘why’ requires reasons, not just a statement of what the judge has decided and a bald order of the court.
Sufficient to comply with requirement
So what is sufficient to comply with the requirement for reasons? There is no need for a judge to deal with every argument put forward by a party; but – in a passage the court held, should apply to all judgments (§[18]) – Griffiths LJ in Eagil Trust Co Ltd v Pigott-Brown [1985] 3 All ER 119 at 122 said:
When dealing with an application in chambers to strike out for want of prosecution, a judge should give his reasons in sufficient detail to show the Court of Appeal the principles on which he has acted, and the reasons which led him to his decision. They need not be elaborate. I cannot stress too strongly that there is no duty on a judge in giving his reasons to deal with every argument presented by Counsel in support of his case. It is sufficient if what he says shows the parties, and if need be the Court of Appeal the basis on which he acted… (see Sachs LJ in Knight v Clifton [1971] 2 AER 378 at 392–393, [1971] Ch. 700 at 721).
Thus if appeals are to work properly the judge must enable the appellate court to understand why a decision was reached:
[19] It follows that, if the appellate process is to work satisfactorily, the judgment must enable the appellate court to understand why the Judge reached his decision. This does not mean that every factor which weighed with the Judge in his appraisal of the evidence has to be identified and explained. But the issues the resolution of which were vital to the Judge’s conclusion should be identified and the manner in which he resolved them explained. It is not possible to provide a template for this process….
The court concluded this passage by referring to a judge’s approach to expert evidence and reasons why one expert may have been referred to another:
[20] The first two appeals with which we are concerned involved conflicts of expert evidence. In Flannery Henry LJ quoted from the judgment of Bingham LJ in Eckersley v Binnie (1988) 18 Con L.R. 1 at 77-8 in which he said that ‘a coherent reasoned opinion expressed by a suitably qualified expert should be the subject of a coherent reasoned rebuttal’. This does not mean that the judgment should contain a passage which suggests that the Judge has applied the same, or even a superior, degree of expertise to that displayed by the witness. He should simply provide an explanation as to why he has accepted the evidence of one expert and rejected that of another…. Whatever the explanation may be, it should be apparent from the judgment.
Lack of reasons will not necessarily justify an appeal; but if an order is made which does not make immediate sense justification for an appeal may more readily be found.
appeal and reasons for judgment, committal, evidence on judgment summons, judgment summons, reasons for judgment	3 Comments
Law reform, Women’s Aid and a Parliamentary domestic violence group
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Freedoms and claim-rights
Cross-examination of victims of domestic violence
Cross-examination of victim by an alleged abuser