{"id":10582,"date":"2017-05-23T15:18:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T14:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=10582"},"modified":"2017-05-23T15:19:19","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T14:19:19","slug":"lawyers-call-total-no-fault-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/lawyers-call-total-no-fault-divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyers call for total no-fault divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nigel<\/a>
Nigel Shepherd, seen here at a ‘Resolution’ conference, is arguing for no-fault divorce<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A group of lawyers wants\u00a0the new Parliament to legislate for total no-fault divorce.<\/p>\n

The idea was floated years ago, in John Major’s ill-fated Family Law Act 1996. \u00a0Despite that, it was never implemented.<\/p>\n

Divorce on ‘Irretrievable\u00a0breakdown’<\/h2>\n

Many people do not know there is only one legal ground <\/a><\/strong>for divorce. \u00a0It is that the marriage has ‘irretrievably broken down’.<\/p>\n

The person who starts proceedings, (called the Petitioner) must prove that by establishing one of the following five facts. \u00a0Only the first three involve fault:<\/p>\n

Adultery
\nUnreasonable behaviour
\nDesertion
\n2 years separation with consent
\n5 years separation (no consent required)<\/p>\n

Now family law solicitor Nigel Shepherd wants to eliminate fault altogether. \u00a0He chairs a group of around 6,500 other lawyers called Resolution. \u00a0It claims to be\u00a0committed<\/a><\/strong> to the ‘constructive resolution of family disputes’ . Their Code of Practice ‘promotes a non-confrontational approach to family problems’.<\/p>\n

Marriage reduced to boyfriend \/ girlfriend status<\/h2>\n

So Mr Shepherd has written to MPs urging his no-fault idea be placed in party manifestos<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0In his letter, Mr Shepherd says, \u00a0\u2018current divorce law does not encourage couples to divorce amicably\u2019. \u00a0 He complains that \u2018people often have to cite unreasonable behaviour or adultery on the divorce petition\u2019.<\/p>\n

He claims this situation leads to unnecessary conflict and makes an amicable separation less likely. \u00a0It also reduces the chances of reaching agreement on children and financial issues, he says.<\/p>\n

But there is a downside. \u00a0The ‘Resolution’ idea reduces marriage to no\u00a0more than a boyfriend \/ girlfriend relationship.<\/p>\n

Of course, many would argue it’s there already. \u00a0‘Unreasonable behaviour’ is ‘no-fault’ in all but name. \u00a0Virtually anything will do in an ‘unreasonable behaviour’ petition. no matter how subjective. \u00a0Parties often agree such a\u00a0petition together.<\/p>\n

Moreover,\u00a0it is pie in the sky to believe that just by taking the fault-based facts out everything will suddenly be decided ‘amicably’. \u00a0Divorce hurts. \u00a0People are bitter about it. \u00a0That is the reality of breaking a covenant.<\/p>\n

Will justice be done?<\/h2>\n

There is even another aspect to all this. \u00a0Will the proposals help justice to be done? \u00a0Indeed, is justice being done at the moment? \u00a0Pleading for anyone righteous in Sodom, Abraham\u00a0said to God:<\/p>\n

Genesis 18:25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suppose a party has deserted the other, or committed adultery. \u00a0Suppose they have withdrawn what the Bible calls ‘due benevolence’. \u00a0Perhaps\u00a0they have acted with cruelty, or otherwise by their conduct repudiated their marriage covenant. Is it right and just for there to be a ‘no-fault’ settlement of property and children in such a case?<\/p>\n

And remember that ‘Resolution’ is talking about ‘conciliation’, not about ‘reconciliation’. \u00a0More effort coupled with incentives should go into keeping people together. \u00a0Let us say society accepts ‘no-fault’ divorce. \u00a0In that case, can we not realise that divorce costs in parties’ mental health and achievement, in children’s outcomes and in additional pressures on our housing stock? \u00a0Divorce should be prevented if possible. \u00a0A serious attempt at reconciliation should at least be tried.<\/p>\n

This probably won’t be addressed in party manifestos, but letting marriages be dissolved so easily as they are is a bigger\u00a0problem facing society than Resolution would care to admit. \u00a0And we hate to say it, but fewer divorces would mean fewer fees for lawyers<\/p>\n

Share by clicking on the links below:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of lawyers wants\u00a0the new Parliament to legislate for total no-fault divorce. The idea was floated years ago, in John Major’s ill-fated Family Law Act 1996. \u00a0Despite that, it was never implemented. Divorce on ‘Irretrievable\u00a0breakdown’ Many people do not know there is only one legal ground for divorce. \u00a0It is that the marriage has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[184],"tags":[15,3165,3162,3164,3163,43],"class_list":["post-10582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk-christian-constitution","tag-christian-voice","tag-divorce","tag-nigel-shepherd","tag-no-fault","tag-resolution","tag-stephen-green"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",1024,681,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",1024,681,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",1024,681,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd-1024x681.jpg",640,426,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",1024,681,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",1024,681,false],"td_0x420":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",632,420,false],"td_80x60":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",80,53,false],"td_100x75":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",100,67,false],"td_180x135":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",180,120,false],"td_238x178":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",238,158,false],"td_265x198":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",265,176,false],"td_300x160":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",241,160,false],"td_300x194":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",292,194,false],"td_300x350":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",300,200,false],"td_341x220":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",331,220,false],"td_341x400":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",341,227,false],"td_511x400":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",511,340,false],"td_537x360":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",537,357,false],"td_640x0":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",640,426,false],"td_640x350":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",526,350,false],"td_681x0":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",681,453,false],"td_681x400":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",601,400,false],"td_741x486":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",731,486,false],"td_1021x580":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",872,580,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",1024,681,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",857,570,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",600,399,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd.jpg",600,399,false],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd-600x399.jpg",600,399,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Nigel-Shepherd-100x100.jpg",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Stephen","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/stephen\/"},"rttpg_comment":3,"rttpg_category":"UK Christian Constitution<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"A group of lawyers wants\u00a0the new Parliament to legislate for total no-fault divorce. The idea was floated years ago, in John Major’s ill-fated Family Law Act 1996. \u00a0Despite that, it was never implemented. Divorce on ‘Irretrievable\u00a0breakdown’ Many people do not know there is only one legal ground for divorce. \u00a0It is that the marriage has…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}