David Burrows assesses the government’s proposals for an overhaul of divorce law, & supplies some suggestions of his own
- The government’s divorce reform proposals represent a step closer to ‘divorce on demand’ but lack the ability to contest an assertion of fact.
- An alternative suggestion: divorce could be permitted by both parties agreeing that the marriage had broken down, or otherwise on proof of living apart for one year or more.
As a founder member of the Solicitors Family Law Association (now Resolution), I have always supported a divorce law which left as little as possible to be rooted in mutual incrimination. The law reformers tried to do this in the Divorce Reform Act 1969 (DRA 1969), s 1 (‘irretrievable breakdown’); but then facts (per DRA 1969, s 2(1)) got in the way. Interestingly, the government’s recent divorce reform proposals, Reducing family conflict—Reform of the legal requirements for divorce, September 2018, Ministry of Justice, suggest the one ground for divorce: irretrievable breakdown (as now the Matrimonial
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