Articles by ‘Simon Bassett’

The number of couples across Europe choosing to tie the knot has dropped dramatically over the course of the past 40 years.

Labour’s Deputy Leader Harriet Harman has said it is “hypocritical” for ministers to espouse the virtues of marriage, when many are divorced themselves.

Official figures published recently have revealed that there has been a rise in the number of marriages taking place in England and Wales. In particular, religious ceremonies, which suggests that “traditional marriages” may be back in fashion.

Up to now, journalists have been allowed to sit in private divorce hearings but have, in most cases, been unable to report on most of what they hear. It has long-since been the position that matrimonial disputes are inherently private and, other than in certain specific circumstances, should not be freely reported. For that position to be reversed, the media need to show that there is a genuine public interest in publishing anything they hear. However, this is not the same as what would be “interesting to the public”.

A new child maintenance system came into force on 30 June to support more families to work together, while maintaining a heavily subsidised service for those who really need it.

Lady Deech believes current divorce law is outdated and is in need of reform but will her divorce reforms bring about “fair” financial settlements or should the courts retain control to look at each case individually?

Once again the figures released by the Office for National Statistics have shown that there is a decline in the number of families where the parents are married to each other. Legislation has been slow to keep up with the times as unmarried couples have few rights.

Figures have been released this week indicating that, over the past seven years, 7,143 mothers have had successive children removed by family courts in England and Wales. That involved 22,790 children.

The Children and Families Act 2013 legislated that unless the contrary is shown, the involvement of each parent in the life of a child will further that child’s welfare. While this does not mean that each parent must have face-to-face contact, it certainly helps to make it clearer where the Courts stand on this issue.

A report on pension sharing on divorce since its introduction in England and Wales in 2000 has been carried out by Hilary Woodward and Mark Sefton of Cardiff Law School. The study reviewed court files, practitioners’ own experience, judges’ and experts’ assessment of data from a sample of court files. The conclusion reached was that pension sharing was a good weapon in the court’s armoury but that it was used by only a privileged minority. The more common approach was to offset pensions against non-pension assets.

The data for England and Wales, published on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 11 June, looked at marriages that took place in 2012. Its analysis revealed that marriages among men and women…

A report published at the end of last month (May) has suggested that almost half of all parents involved in a legal dispute relating to access to their children were going through the court process without having taken any legal advice.