Drive-in divorce? An excellent idea
Break it up
Ann Widdecombe is not happy. “It makes a nonsense of marriage,” she says. The bristling of her crinoline can be heard from the other side of the country.
The former Home Office minister is objecting to the introduction of so-called regional divorce centres, which HM Courts and Tribunal Service has been opening since November last year. The idea is to streamline the often cumbersome process of divorce, taking it out of our Victorian court system altogether into the electronic age. Routine decree nisi applications could soon be handled in as little as 48 hours.
Miss Widdecombe has likened the move to treating marriage as if you were “discarding an old carrier bag”, adding: “I think the state should send out much stronger signals on support for marriage than this.”
The Christian Legal Centre, which has talked about the “further erosion of the institution of marriage”, a view echoed by a host of other conservative commentators.
But those who have actually had to endure a divorce disagree. “Divorce is not something most people decide lightly,” says Jacky Rose, 50. “Couples don’t go ‘Oh, look at all the paperwork, that looks rather hard, shall we in fact give our marriage another go?’ What a load of nonsense.”
She should know. She filed for her divorce five years ago, and it is yet to be completed – the financial remedies part of the divorce is currently awaiting a final ruling in the Court of Appeal.
Her ordeal has spurred her on to studying law – a silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud. “I’m made of nails, but divorce is an extremely stressful process. I lost a huge amount of weight and I know many who have serious breakdowns as a result.”
It is true that a regional divorce centre sounds about as dignified as an out-of-town retail park. But it is worth examining exactly how the system is changing.
Currently, there are four reasons for divorce that are acceptable in an English court: adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion or the fact that the couples have lived apart for two years, as long as both parties agree (it has to be five years if they do not agree).
None of this is changing. What is changing is how you submit your paperwork. Instead of filing your petition to your local county court, and the paperwork being checked by a district judge, you will submit the petition to one of the 11 divorce centres, located in court buildings. Here, a series of more junior divorce specialists will check all the paperwork.
The main effect, it is hoped, is that judges will spend less time on routine paperwork and more on tricky cases, speeding up the process.
Julian Hawkshead, managing partner of Stowe Family Law, says: “The primary job of a judge is to administer justice. But divorce is mostly an administrative process. You really don’t need a judge on a £100,000-a-year salary checking whether your forms have been filled in correctly.”
He said that during a test of the new process in Yorkshire, the paperwork took far less time. “It’s now a matter of days, rather than weeks. I’ve noticed in Bradford it has definitely speeded up.” Does this quickie “drive-in” approach trivialise marriage? “No, I really don’t think so.”
His view is backed up, interestingly, by the Marriage Foundation. According to Harry Benson, research director at the think-tank: “There are many barriers to splitting up, particularly how you untangle a life together: children, money. But the legal aspect is by far and away the easiest barrier to overcome.”
He argues that making the paperwork easier can only be a good thing; paperwork does not keep a couple together.
There is often much handwringing about rising divorce rates in Britain. But the divorce rate has been falling in England and Wales for the last two decades, not just because fewer people are getting married. It is falling as a proportion of those getting married, with 10.8 per 1,000 married people getting divorced in 2012, compared with 14.2 per 1,000 people back in 1994.
Regional divorce centres change little. It is unlikely that Britain will be awash with divorcees, whatever Miss Widdecombe may fear.