Reflections on the Burrows amendment…

• 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