NLJ this week: Burrows on a ‘dystopian’ rule exposed in Potanina

The Supreme Court held the family court has for years been applying too tough a test for ex-spouses objecting to their former partners seeking financial relief in the English court after a foreign divorce.

Burrows looks at Lord Leggatt’s judgment for the majority and the relevant legislation—Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 (MFPA 1984). Burrows writes that Lord Leggatt ‘described the present procedural practice under MFPA 1984, Pt III as unlawful, although based on Court of Appeal guidance. It represents, he said, a “dystopian” state of procedural affairs. It is contrary… to fundamental principles of procedural justice.’