Divorce case move would make system unfair, say barristers
PLANS to move divorces to the District Court, in cases where the family home is worth less than €1million, will create an unfair, two-tier justice system, barristers have warned.
The Bar of Ireland said the District Court is already the ‘A&E’ of the judicial system thanks to a backlog of cases, and that an influx of divorce and other cases will increase its workload by 11%, adding thousands of cases annually.
The Bar Council said the value of property did not affect the potential complexity of a case. It also said the overstretched district courts would not have the time to consider more difficult contested divorces, leading to rushed decisions, as well as further delays in the system.
In contrast, cases where the family home or land are worth more than €1million will remain in the Circuit Court, where they can be given more time, even if they are completely straightforward.
Sara Phelan, chair of the Bar Council, said it was unfair that cases involving the ‘better-off’ would be given more careful consideration.
‘Parties emerging from marital and relationship breakdown deserve to have their cases heard in a considered manner,’ she said.
‘A court ruling can have a lifelong effect on the parties and their children.
‘This is a process that takes court time, and that is not how the District Court operates. Contested cases belong in the Circuit Court with a more considered approach made available for all, not just for the better-off.’
The move to divide up divorce cases, which are currently almost all dealt with in the Circuit Court, is contained within the proposed Family Courts Bill (2022).
Currently, almost all divorces are handled by the Circuit Court, apart from divorces with assets exceeding €3million, which are heard by the High Court.
Yesterday, the Bar of Ireland said it was calling for urgent amendments to the draft Bill. It said it was doing this ‘to avoid the creation of a twotier family justice system, and in order to ensure there is fairness for all families before the courts’. The draft Bill is currently before the Houses of the Oireachtas. It proposes the reassignment of most divorce, judicial separation and co-habitation proceedings to the District Court.
The Bar Council said: ‘Those proceedings involving land valuing more than €1million will remain at the Circuit Court with a more considered and less hasty process for the exact same or perhaps even more straightforward case.
‘This will displace existing family law cases causing further delays for all family litigants and impacting on all those who have cause to go before the District Court.’
Ms Phelan said that if the change was intended to reduce legal costs, it would not work as the cases would take longer to resolve due to delays in the court system.
‘We are calling on Government to revisit this aspect of the Bill urgently, and to afford the same fairness to all families and those in the midst of relationship breakdown,’ she concluded.
The Department of Justice said: ‘One of the aims of the Family Courts Bill 2022 is to enable a greater proportion of non-contentious family law matters to be dealt with at District Court level, in order to minimise the costs for litigants and to provide local access to the court system.
‘The proposed extension of jurisdiction should be particularly helpful in non-contentious divorce cases, where many issues will have already been agreed between the parties to the case before they go into court and what remains is the granting of the decree of divorce by the court.’
It said that in special circumstances, the family District Court will be able to refer cases onto the family Circuit Court.
‘More considered and less hasty’