Source: http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed181439
Timestamp: 2018-07-18 04:59:34
Document Index: 619240903

Matched Legal Cases: ['EWCA ', '§7', 'EWCA ', '§18', '§21', '§22', '§23', '§24', 'EWCA ', '§25']

Family Law Week: R v R & Anor [2017] EWCA Civ 1588
The parties divorced in Russia in 2013. W claimed financial provision in this jurisdiction under Part III of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and Schedule 1 to the Children Act 1989. At an early hearing, H had challenged the English court's jurisdiction to make an interim maintenance order. His appeal was dismissed, but the Court of Appeal published the judgment in an anonymised form pursuant to a reporting restrictions order.
At the conclusion of the financial proceedings, Mr Justice Moor refused H's application to extend the Court of Appeal's reporting restriction order and instead discharged it. The Court of Appeal granted H's application for permission to appeal the discharge.
Lord Justice McFarlane gave the only judgment of the Court of Appeal. He first dismissed H's submission that Moor J had found H's right to life under Article 2 of the ECHR were engaged; he had not and they were not [§7 to 15].
The Court of Appeal further dismissed H's argument based on s.97 of the Children Act 1989, which prohibited the publication of any material likely to identify any child as being involved in proceedings under the 1989 Act. The key authority was Clayton v Clayton [2006] EWCA Civ 878: s.97 was only available whilst proceedings remained live. In this case, Moor J made final orders, no further hearings had taken place and none were anticipated [§18].
The nub of the appeal was H's contention that Moor J failed to engage with the issues and fell into error as a matter of law, when conducting the Article 8 vs. Article 10 balancing exercise. The Court of Appeal accepted that there were deficiencies in the judgment of Moor J, as to its length and structure. However, these had to be looked at in the light of a number of forensic realities:
(i) The judgment was given ex tempore at the conclusion of the substantive proceedings [§21];
(ii) H had advanced his case on Article 2 grounds, so the judge focused on those principally [§22];
(iii) If H was asserting the judge gave inadequate reasons, "it was very much incumbent upon the appellant and those representing him to raise that issue squarely with the judge and invite him to clarify his reasons. Where no such request has been made, this court should be slow to construe any lack of clarity as indicating judicial error as opposed to a simple failure to spell matters out with precision in an ex tempore judgment given at the end of proceedings." [§23]
(iv) The transcript of the hearing, not just the judgment, revealed discussions about the approach in law and the relevant issues [§24 and 28].
Moor J had made his decision prior to the Court of Appeal's judgment in Norman v Norman [2017] EWCA Civ 120, [2017] 2 FCR 270, which considered the principles applicable to anonymisation of judgments. As it so happened, Moor J, "gave priority to the importance of the principle of open justice with respect to the Court of Appeal judgment, in a manner which was, as it turned out, entirely in line with the approach endorsed in Norman." [§25-26]
The Court of Appeal thus dismissed H's appeal. The result of this would be that any reporting of the appellant judgments would require care and caution so as to ensure that there was no reporting of issues still covered by an injunction from the first instance proceedings.
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