Recently a Court of Appeal dismissed a wife’s application for an anonymity order and confirmed that her case should be heard in public.
Therefore, it can be widely reported in the press and names published. One of the benefits of arbitration is privacy and this is something you should consider if you are embarking on divorce proceedings and need to resolve issues surrounding the children and/or finances.
You may also have seen in the paper a report in relation to this case, where a heterosexual couple challenged the reasons why they could not enter into a civil partnership. Same sex couples have the choice of entering into either a civil partnership or into marriage.
The reason they wanted to challenge this is that they wish to formalize their relationship but they had deep routed and genuine ideological objections to marriage based on what they considered to be its historically patriarchal nature. They considered that the status of civil partnership would project their values and give due recognition to the equal nature of their relationship. However, their request to be allowed to enter into a civil partnership was dismissed by the Court of Appeal. This was because of the wish of the Secretary of State to have further time to undertake a proper assessment of the best way forward. However, all of the judges were critical of the status quo. They all agreed that the couple were being treated differently because of their sexual orientation and this impacted on their private and family life. Therefore, hopefully the Secretary of State will reconsider her position, but I understand that an appeal to the Supreme Court is already being prepared. The Secretary of State’s current policy is that she will not propose any change to the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 until she has statistical data about whether the number of same sex couples choosing or remaining in civil partnership rises and falls, following the introduction of same sex marriage.
In a decision of the court in December 2016, a wife was awarded a high level of maintenance even after a very short marriage. The parties had a child aged almost 2 and the marriage was only of some 19 months in total. The husband was a professional footballer and earning in the region of £1m per year.
The wife had no money, no income of her own and limited earning capacity. The wife was awarded maintenance on what is called a joint lives basis which included an element of stock piling, allowing her the security of home ownership. The stock piling element was used to enable the wife to pay down a mortgage. The husband was ordered to pay periodical payments of £164,000 per year, together with child support of £36,000 per year and some money by way of a lump sum. Therefore, it is extremely important that before you marry that you consider a prenuptial agreement. Whilst it may not have prevented all the orders the court has made, it would have gone some way to reducing the husband’s very onerous obligations after a very short marriage. If you are considering entering into a prenuptial agreement, it is important that it is done at least 28 days before the marriage, therefore do not leave it until the last minute.
It is believed that Brexit is going to have a huge effect on family law, especially for those families whose parents are of different EU nationalities. There will also be implications for the British ex-pat community living in the EU unless agreements are reached to protect them.
At the moment, a divorce granted in England (and Wales) is automatically recognised elsewhere in the EU (except Denmark). There is currently an EU divorce regulation known as Brussels IIa and if it no longer applies the English court will have to decide whether it or a competing EU jurisdiction is the place where the divorce should take place. This could lead to very expensive and complex litigation and also cases where there are conflicting decisions. There could also be issues with the automatic enforcements of children orders and maintenance orders made by the UK courts.