Civil way: 25 May 2018

• Worthless divorces.
• Witness chat disaster.
• First-class appeals.
• Happy tune for whistlers.

FAMILY WAYS

Ooops The FD President issued interim guidance on 23 April 2018 on the procedural path to be followed by judges in relation to dummy decrees. A number of cases have been brought to his attention where decrees nisi and absolute have been granted notwithstanding that divorce petitions have been presented within one year of the marriage or before the expiration of the two year separation period under s 1(2)(d) or (e) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. In the former situation, the decrees are null and void and the defect cannot be cured by petition amendment (and any financial remedy order will surely fall). A remarriage would be invalid and any children born of it would be illegitimate. In the latter case, the President suggests that the same consequences would follow except that ‘it may be possible, if the facts warrant it, to amend the petition to plead one of the grounds set out in ss 1(2)(a)