Family Law

(Family Division; Mr Stephen Bellamy QC; 17 October 2005)

Although the jurisdiction to grant a freezing order was wide, flexible and capable of innovation where circumstances demanded, where Parliament had laid down a statutory procedure for determining questions of maintenance pending suit, as well as other ancillary relief matters and that route was available to a spouse, then the courts jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief under the Supreme Court Act 1981, s 37 should not be used or made available as a short cut to that payment. It would only be in the most exceptional cases where urgency demanded immediate payment to a spouse or children that the court would consider imposing such a term as part of a freezing order, and then only for the shortest possible duration until a hearing could resolve matters under the statutory regime laid down.

• Archive
• Judgments