Family Law

(Court of Appeal Thorpe; Wall and Stanley Burnton LJJ; 17 July 2008)

Judges in preliminary fact finding hearings involving serious allegations of domestic violence should never accept a submission of no case to answer, terminating the case without hearing all the available evidence. The court could only conceive of a termination that rested on a concession from the applicant that such an outcome was inevitable. The judge's quasi-inquisitorial role throughout family proceedings could not be undertaken without hearing all the evidence.

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