Consistency and clarity are generally considered useful attributes. So why do we have separate rules for civil proceedings and family proceedings? Could it be made less confusing? Solicitor advocate and NLJ columnist David Burrows covers the many areas of overlap and investigates the reasons for the existence of two sets of rules, CPR and FPR, in this week’s NLJ.
Burrows looks in particular at disclosure and open justice, identifying some room for improvement. On disclosure, for example, he writes that ‘a litigant in person and many practising family lawyers… will inevitably be confused by the gaps in the rules’.
On anonymity, he writes: ‘A ragged uncertainty swirls around anonymity. Family lawyers do not have a nice simple list like that in CPR 39.2(3) above. Whyever not?’
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