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08 October 2021 / David Burrows
Issue: 7951 / Categories: Features , Family , Divorce
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Reflections on the Burrows amendment…

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David Burrows charts the highs & lows of the ‘Ancillary relief pilot scheme’ 25 years on
  • Looks at the main aspects of the financial relief procedural scheme and how it has fared since its introduction.
  • A well-run financial dispute resolution, overseen by an experienced district judge, can work. Massive amounts of much-needed court time, and the parties’ resources, could be saved.

‘We call it “the Burrows amendment”’, said the Lord Chancellor, Lord McKay, as we sat at a roundtable—him, six civil servants from the Lord Chancellor’s Department (now Ministry of Justice) and me. It was late November 1996. The ‘amendment’ was Civil Procedure Act 1997, Sch 1, para 7, which says the following:

‘Different provision for different cases etc.

7. The power to make Civil Procedure Rules includes power to make different provision for different cases or different areas, including different provision—

(a) for a specific court or specific division of a court, or

(b) for specific proceedings, or a specific jurisdiction,

specified in the rules.’

The Lord Chancellor

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A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
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Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
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A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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Family law must shift from conflict-driven litigation to child-centred problem-solving, according to a major new report. Writing in NLJ this week, Caroline Bowden of Anthony Gold outlines findings showing overwhelming support for reform, with 92% agreeing lawyers owe duties to children as well as clients
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