The ‘No Fault Divorce’ debate continues to divide opinion

Earlier this year the Labour Party included in its manifesto the introduction of a ‘no fault divorce’ and a leading divorce lawyer made a speech to the Conservative Party at their recent annual conference.

At present English Law only allows married couples to get divorced for certain reasons. Those reasons (or ‘facts’ as they are known) are:

(a) desertion;

(b) Five years’ separation;

(c) Two years’ separation (so long as both parties consent to a divorce);

(d) that one party has committed adultery; or

(e) that one party has behaved in an unreasonable way.

This means that unless the parties have been separated for two years or more, either party wishing to file a divorce petition must make allegations against the other that they have either committed adultery or have behaved unreasonably.

There is a long-standing campaign to change the divorce laws so that blame does not have to be apportioned when a divorce petition is filed.

One of the arguments in favour of amending the law to allow for a ‘no-fault’ divorce without waiting two years after separation is that the end of a marriage can often be a difficult enough time for a separating couple as it is, without the added friction of one party having to make allegations against the other in Court papers which can create conflict from the outset. This is particularly prevalent when there are children involved or when the (generally) more complex issue of dividing the assets is yet to take place.

There have been frequent attempts to reform this area of law. In 2015 Richard Bacon MP for South Norfolk introduced ‘The No Fault Divorce Bill (HC Bill 77) as a Private Members’ Bill. The Bill proposed that where couples are in agreement about Divorce/Civil Partnership Dissolution and wished to proceed on the grounds of no fault, they could sign a document confirming their consent. The Bill did propose a 12 month delay in between granting Decree Nisi and Decree Absolute to allow the couple a ‘cooling off’ period so that they had a period of time to reflect on whether they wanted a Divorce/Civil Partnership Dissolution. The Bill did not get a second reading.

Resolution, an organisation of 6,500 Family Lawyers and other professionals in England and Wales, who believe in a constructive, non-confrontational approach to family law matters is also campaigning for the reform of the divorce procedure and specifically to remove the need for blame from divorce which can ultimately cause conflict.

Despite the drive for reform in this area a straw poll of the audience members of the recent Conservative Party conference found that there was equal support for and against reform in this area. Campaigners for reform may therefore have a hard time gaining support for the introduction of no fault divorce with the current requirement to apportion blame looking likely to stay, at least for the time being.

Whilst it looks like the debate regarding a move to ‘no-fault’ divorce is set to rumble on, our team at Leathes Prior are all members of Resolution and commit to resolving family law disputes in a non-confrontational manner. If you would like advice regarding Divorce/Civil Partnership Dissolution please contact one of the Family Services Team on 01603 610911, info@leathesprior.co.uk or by contacting one of the team directly.