Civil way: 9 August 2019

CURSING THE DRAFT

Judgment has been reserved and the judge has been silly enough to circulate a draft judgment before handing down instead of delivering an oral judgment in due course and daring the loser to pay an arm and a leg for a transcript. And you don’t think much of the draft. According to King LJ in I Children [2019] EWCA Civ 898, it has become almost routine in family court children and financial remedy cases for the draft to be followed up with extensive requests to the judge for ‘clarification’ which in many cases are no more than attempts to reargue or water down. On occasions, these requests can be confrontational and disrespectful in tone.

Receiving a draft judgment is not an ‘invitation to treat’, stated the appeal judge. Nor was it an opportunity to critique the judgment or to enter into negotiations with the judge as to the outcome or to reargue the case in an attempt to water