The “no fault” divorce bill which was introduced as a private members bill in Parliament this year by Richard Bacon MP will be presented again in the next session of parliament, which begins on 18 May 2015 as there is no longer enough time left to deal with the bill in the current parliamentary session.
The bill advocates a move forwards from current divorce law into a new way of looking at things where neither party would need to be at fault.
Currently, there is one ground on which a divorce can be granted – that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. There are then five facts upon which the petitioner can rely to show this. They are:
- Adultery on behalf of the Respondent
- The Respondent’s unreasonable behaviour
- Desertion for at least two years
- Separation for at least two years
- Separation for at least five years
If the parties are not willing to wait two years after separation for divorce they must rely on one of the top two facts of either adultery or unreasonable behaviour. Both of these currently contain an element of fault. In many cases petitioners then rely on unreasonable behaviour and this can lead to inflamed tensions in an otherwise amicable split due to the perceived attributing of the breakdown of the marriage to one party over the other.
The idea of no fault divorce is to recognise that in many cases a marriage has simply run its cause with the fault of the break-up not attributable to one party over the other.
Nicola Whitley, Senior Associate and Head of the Family Law Department at Swain & Co Solicitors says, “Divorce has always been a difficult area of law. In some cases when two people break up they want to point the finger at the other as being “at fault”. However, in modern society we recognise that marriages can break down for a variety of reasons and these are often not as easy to categorise as the current fault-based system would like. I\t is therefore positive that MP’s are taking a step to consider changes to divorce law going forwards.”
If you have any questions about divorce please do not hesitate to contact one of our team today on 02392 492 967.
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