Ah the non-fault divorce, surely a myth of matrimonial
law! Can it be that we can allow parties
to separate without attributing any blame? Where’s the fun in that…?!
Joking aside, the issue is really a pertinent one especially
when we live in an age where dispute resolution in all its weird and wonderful
forms – mediation, arbitration and conciliation – are stressed more and more by
the courts as the way to deal with matrimonial disputes. This has been highlighted in the recent
change in law as of 22 April 2014 where all parties who wish to make an
application to court regarding children or finances have to first attend a
Mediation Information Assessment Meeting (MIAM) to see whether or not their
case is suitable for mediation.
So if we can have this for children and finances, why can’t
we have something similar for the actual divorce, why is there no such ground
in English law that allows parties to separate without blaming each other?
Obviously, the nature of marital breakdown being such, it is
only natural that one party will blame another. However, as
Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, recently said, divorce by consent, in that
parties have been agreeing to separate by pre-agreeing grounds of unreasonable
behaviour, has been happening for the last 30 years in
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