The President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, is responsible for the family courts, with an emphasis on making the procedures efficient both for practitioners and for the growing number of litigant in person.
In his 17th View from the president’s chamber, he is enthusiastic when he talks about the digital age and how this will streamline the process for divorce, which, in the most part, remains paper-based and does not call upon judicial involvement. Whilst financial remedy proceedings are governed by the progress of the divorce proceedings, he calls for a ‘de-linking’ of divorce proceedings from financial remedy proceedings in an effort to create a process which alleviates the administrative burdens on the divorce unit of financial remedy claims, and gives room for alternative methods of financial remedy to be explored under legislation other than the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.
The timetable going forward starts with the rolling out of the on-line divorce projects, which he suggests, should ‘proceed as fast as sensibly possible’. This is followed by the ‘de-linking’ as it is called, of the divorce process from the financial remedy process. By early 2018, it is envisaged that there will be a pilot Financial Remedies Court before which necessary updates to the Family Procedure Rules should have taken place.
The President talks about the need for continuing reform and with a system at present that is buckling on the ground under the pressure, these changes make for interesting times ahead.
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/view-from-presidents-chamber-17-may-2017.pdf