Source: http://www.jordanpublishing.co.uk/practice-areas/family/publications/evidence-in-family-proceedings
Timestamp: 2017-05-23 20:29:49
Document Index: 197654896

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Home › Practice Areas › Family Law › Evidence in Family Proceedings
This specialist title defines the general rules of evidence as they apply to family matters, while the range of rules which apply specifically to family proceedings are also covered in detail.
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9781784732554
The present mainstream books on evidence do not include coverage of certain features which are unique to family law - eg special law and procedure on hearsay and other rules of evidence (eg litigation privilege and expert evidence) in children proceedings; and the rules on disclosure in financial relief proceedings. At the same time, family lawyers do not always take account of the extent to which they depend on the common law and the rules of evidence which are defined by such mainstream texts.Accordingly, this specialist title defines the general rules of evidence as they apply to family matters, while the range of rules which apply specifically to family proceedings are also covered in detail.This title is relevant to all family lawyers, and related professionals such as expert witnesses, social workers, guardians and lay advisers.
IntroductionForms and range of evidencePrivate and open court: evidence in family proceedingsEvidence and the court hearingIssues for trialRelevance and admissibilityBurden and standard of proofCompellabilityFacts not requiring proofOpinion evidenceInformation and inquiryDisclosurePrivilege from disclosureLegal professional privilegeSelf-incrimination privilegeWithout prejudice privilegePublic interest immunityClosed material proceduresChildren: their voice and their evidenceVulnerable and incapacitated witnesses and parties in family proceedingsSpecial measures for dealing with evidenceEvidence on appeal
Solicitor Advocate This is the most comprehensive work in its area that I have come across, taking in, where so many other works have dared not tread, hearsay and litigation privilege in children cases and disclosure in financial remedy cases. It is essential stuff for practitioners involved in either the preparation of these proceedings or in their advocacy and experts, guardians and lay advisers have much to gain from it. Advocates will be unable to find any material to assist the judge on swearing in a witness with a speech impediment or who refuses to take the oath or affirm or deciding whether a witness should or should not hear the evidence which is to precede their own testimony, but that's what judicial training courses are for. Every other angle of evidence receives the most careful attention in digestible text and a kindly introduction to each chapter sets out to tease the topics to be covered if the reader stays with it ...Read more.pdfStephen GoldNew Law Journal, February 2017
Family proceedings are governed, in the first instance, by the common law likeany proceedings in an English court. Sir James Munby P (then Munby LJ)explained this in Richardson v Richardson [2011] EWCA Civ 79:‘[53] … The Family Division is part of the High Court. It is not some legal Alsatia[a lawless part of London in the early seventeenth century just to the west of theCity of London] where the common law and equity do not apply. The rules ofagency apply there as much as elsewhere. But in applying those rules one musthave regard to the context, and the relevant context here is the law [matrimonialfinancial relief in that case] …’This can be said of the rules of agency as of any other aspect of law whichapplies the common law to civil proceedings. Thus, it is of many of the legalprinciples applied to family proceedings in this book, including, for example,the rules of precedent. In Willers v Joyce & Anor (Re: Gubay (deceased))(No 2) [2016] UKSC 44, the doctrine of precedent was touched on by theSupreme Court (in a judgment concerned with the extent to which courts werebound by Privy Council decisions). Lord Neuberger said:‘[4] In a common law system, where the law is in some areas made, and the lawis in virtually all areas developed, by judges, the doctrine of precedent, or as it issometimes known stare decisis, is fundamental. Decisions on points of law bymore senior courts have to be accepted by more junior courts. Otherwise, the lawbecomes anarchic, and it loses coherence clarity and predictability. Cross andHarris in their instructive Precedent in English Law 4th ed (1991), p 11, rightlyrefer to the “highly centralised nature of the hierarchy” of the courts of Englandand Wales, and the doctrine of precedent is a natural and necessary ingredient, orconsequence, of that hierarchy.[5] The doctrine is, of course, seen in its simplest and most familiar form whenapplied to the hierarchy of courts. On issues of law, (i) Circuit Judges are boundby decisions of High Court Judges, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court,(ii) High Court Judges are bound by decisions of the Court of Appeal and theSupreme Court, and (iii) the Court of Appeal is bound by decisions of theSupreme Court.’Clarity and predictability are the essence of the system of precedent (see alsoRule of Law Tom Bingham [alias Lord Bingham of Cornhill] (2010),Chapter 3); and this means that junior courts ‘have to accept’ decisions onpoints of law of higher courts.The powers of judges in family law are regulated extensively by statute. Thisincludes their powers to deal with children (while inherent powers to deal withwardship dwindle correspondingly); to order that children be taken into careand adopted; and that marriages or civil partnerships be dissolved and propertybe distributed on dissolution. By contrast, many of the principles by whichjudges operate statutory powers are governed by rules which go beyond FamilyProcedure Rules 2010 and can only be found in the common law.As Lord Neuberger said in Willers v Joyce (above) the common law ‘is in someareas made, and the law is in virtually all areas developed, by judges’. So it isin family law. However, the judge does not operate in a vacuum. The commonlaw is to be found in, or it is constructed from, a variety of sources. It isdistilled or codified into a statute (as in Youth Justice and Criminal EvidenceAct 1999 and in Senior Courts Act 1981, s 37) or other statutory instrument(Civil Procedure Rules 1998, Part 31 (disclosure of documents in civilproceedings)). It is defined in case-law (see the open justice principle asexplained in R (Guardian News and Media Ltd) v City of WestminsterMagistrates’ Court (Article 19 intervening) [2012] EWCA Civ 420, [2013] QB618). Alternatively, it is found where the High Court has assumed inherentjurisdiction (save already asserted by the High Court, the Family Court has noinherent jurisdiction: Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984, s 31E).The common law can only be explained afresh or altered by court findings ofthe Senior Courts (stare decisis); or by express – that is to say, clearly stated –statutory provision.In a subject which is as diffuse as evidence related to family proceedings, I havetried to find the common law principles which underpin a subject – and, whereneed be, to find any source for the common law principle (eg Civil ProcedureRules 1998, Part 31 and Chapter 12, is an obvious example; or Youth Justiceand Criminal Evidence Act 1999, Part 2). I have then attempted to show howthe common law is developed by the principles which apply to familyproceedings (eg the tension between the open justice principle and familyproceedings where even many aspects of children proceedings are notcompletely private: see eg Re S (Identification: Restrictions on Publication)[2004] UKHL 47, [2005] 1 FLR 591).I am grateful to Her Honour Nasreen Pearce for discussing with me Chapter 20on closed material procedures, especially in relation to her specialist areas offorced marriage protection and female genital mutilation. (Any errors in thechapter are, of course, mine.) There is considerable doubt as to whether theseextreme areas of restriction of open justice principles can be developed at all,other than by statute (Bank Mellat v Her Majesty’s Treasury (No 1) [2013]UKSC 38, [2014] AC 700), but so far as they may be able to do so in childrenproceedings (and, eg, in relation to forced marriage protection and femalegenital mutilation), Chapter 20 suggests how the common law might bedeveloped, by analogy with existing statutory provision (Justice and SecurityAct 2013 (JSA 2013) and Civil Procedure Rules 1998, Part 82).The law is stated as I understand it to be at 1 September 2016.David Burrows12 September 2016
Introduction1 EVIDENCE AND THE LAW ON FAMILY BREAKDOWNFamily proceedings1.1 Evidence is the means whereby a case is proved before a court at ahearing (final or interim), and whereby the outcome of a case is determined.The appropriate rules of procedure – in this case Family Procedure Rules 2010(FPR 2010), with some support from Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR 1998) –are the means whereby the presentation of that evidence is regulated. Thischapter introduces the rules and the court framework within which family lawand family courts procedure operate.1.2 The aim of FPR 2010 is to make the family justice system accessible andefficient.1 The jurisdiction of that system was to have been concentrated in asingle court. The majority of the work of the courts on family breakdown isindeed concentrated in the Family Court, but that court and the notionallyseparate Family Division of the High Court operate alongside one another andunder the same set of rules. A very small amount of family breakdown cases(eg unmarried couples’ property disputes; Inheritance (Provision for Family andDependants) Act 1975; some cases under Child Support Act 1991) proceedunder separate rules but in a book on evidence and family proceedings it is notnecessary to labour the procedural distinctions.1.3 This short introduction to family law and the jurisdictions of the courtswhich deal with it proceeds as follows:Part 2: explains what is meant by ‘family law’ and the procedure – FPR 2010 – by which proceedings under family law are dealt with.Part 3: provides a brief overview of the operation of family courts and introduction of the Family Court and the legislation (Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 (MFPA 1984), Part 4A).Part 4: introduces the overriding objective in FPR 2010, Part 1 which recurs (especially case management under FPR 2010, r 1.4) throughout the text of this book and judgments considered by it.
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