Practice directions in the family law courts need “a good spring clean” to make them more easily understood, according to Geraldine Morris, head of LexisPSL Family.
“Changes have been made but old dates, references to former presidents and inconsistent language remains, which is a shame when the intention is to make the court system more intelligible to litigants in person,” Morris writes in this week’s NLJ. She points out that many practice directions had clearly been “cobbled together” when the Family Procedure Rules 2010 came into force in 2011.
Nevertheless, confusion is perhaps inevitable given the huge scale of the project, she writes, and last year’s “avalanche” of family justice reform will continue apace in 2015.
Further developments on the Financial Remedies Working Group (FRWG), led by Mr Justice Mostyn, which set out its recommendations in October, are expected in the early part of this year.
