Family Law

The President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, has today (19 January 2016) published a Memorandum proposing amendments to the Bundles PD - PD27A.

The proposed amendments are twofold.

1. The insertion in PD27A of a new para 5.2A, as follows:

'Unless the court has specifically directedotherwise, being satisfied that such direction is necessary to enable theproceedings to be disposed of justly, any of the following documents includedin the bundle shall be limited to no more than the number of sheets of A4 paperand sides of text specified below:

Case summary	4
Statement of issues	2
Position statement	5
Chronology	10
Skeleton argument	15
List of essential reading	1
Witness statement or affidavit (exclusive of exhibits)	20
Expert’s or other report	40
Care plan	10'

In that regard, the memorandum consults on the following questions: '(i) is this desirable; (ii) if so, should length be controlledby a page count or a word count; and (iii) if by page count, are the suggested figuresare appropriate?'

2. Amendment of the final words of PD27A, para 4.3, which will be re-numbered as 4.3A to read (additional words show in italic):

'Copies of all authorities relied on must be contained in a separate composite bundle agreed between the advocates. Unless the court has specifically directed otherwise, being satisfied that such direction is necessary to enable the proceedings to be disposed of justly, the bundle shall not contain more than 10 authorities. Where a case is reported in a law report which contains a headnote, such a report shall be used and transcripts (including transcripts on BAILII) shall not be used. Attention is drawn to the Practice Direction dated 24 March 2012.'

The consultation responses are due 1 March 2016 and should be sent by email to Andrew Shaw: andrew.shaw@judiciary.gsi.gov.uk

The President's Memorandum is available to download here.