John Charman’s miffed that the Court of Appeal has upheld a financial award of £48,000,000 to his ex-wife Beverley on their divorce after 27 years. There’ll be a lot written on this in the newspapers tomorrow I dare say, but unsurprisingly the first robust sense comes from John Bolch at Family Lore. I agree with John that none of this really matters to most people.
Surely, whether an equal division should be the starting point, and how each partner’s contribution should be accounted for, matters much more in what you might call an http://www.magliettedacalcioit.com average middle-income case. And I think it’s that kind of case where the principles would be better tested in the House of Lords. Or, as John wrote earlier this month, agreeing with Jeremy Posnansky, perhaps Parliament needs to step in to lay down principles relevant to marriage, and indeed civil partnership, today. Like John, though, I think this is the kind of thing MPs are happy to leave to judges to sort out.
Good to meet you last week at the BlogC onference
I take the view that the affairs of the truly rich who can’t (for whatever reason) keep their relationships going….. should not be played out to / or in the press.
All relationship breakdowns should be private – but,as the law stands today… if the parties choose (as is often the case) to rehearse their ‘viewpoint’ about the relationship or the inadequacies of our Law in public …. then…. it is inevitable that the Press will become involved.
I like the idea that we should let the judges sort it out… but….. do we actually have a coherent law on divorce….. is it a just law ?… do we really ‘lead the world’ in Family Law?….
I ask, only because I have no expertise in this field….
I also very much enjoyed meeting you at the conference last week.
The problem is that we have very little statutory guidance to assist judges in the exercise of their discretion. As a result, we rely upon a series of often conflicting precedents, almost all of which involve big-money and are therefore of limited relevance to the ‘average’ case.
As for leading the world, I never know where statements like that come from – do the people saying this have knowledge of every other system in the world? I doubt it. In any event, how does one compare legal systems?
Very pleasant to have met you two gentlemen also!
Charon, I think MPs are tempted to leave it to judges simply because legislation on this kind of thing is the last thing any politician wants to touch. Financial relief on divorce is a zero-sum game so every decision of policy principle that a government made about it would involve making some people losers. And with divorce increasing, that means a lot of miffed voters. I think the only way it could be done would be to implement a Law Commission or Royal Commission proposal, but even that’d take a lot of political courage.
John, I couldn’t agree more about “leading the world” – I think often comparisons between legal systems often simply reflect attitudes to our own system and are based on very little knowledge of elsewhere – much in the way people looked at exotic tribes a few hundred years ago. I suppose if you’re advising the wife of an exceptionally rich man who can petition for divorce where she likes, then London may seem an attractive place just now, so it “leads the world” in that sense. I expect advisers of the exceptionally rich hubbies feel it “lags behind”, as indeed John Charman’s solicitor said outside the RCJ yesterday.
So, there is no truth to the rumour that Charon QC has fallen off his motorbike and kicked the bucket? It’s just that I heard a rumour that he is a blogger. Has he not got over his mirror getting nicked? You’ve got to move on…like update posts…