A lost decade

When the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 were introduced on 1 April 1998 they did not apply to family proceedings. They still do not. Writing in the New Law Journal, David Burrows observed that HM Court Service and the Family Procedure Rule Committee have already taken as long as it took Lord Woolf’s committee to redesign the full set of Civil Procedure Rules to do no more than produce a response to consultation: Family Proceedings Rules – a new procedural code for family proceedings. He fears it will take as long again to achieve their proclaimed holy grail of ‘one set of simple and simply expressed rules’. The most important objective of the original consultation paper – harmonisation with the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 – is not even touched upon. Much of the document is devoted to semantics and not substance. Mr Burrows asks who really cares whether a ‘co-respondent’ is a ‘second respondent’, whether you ‘issue’ or ‘start’ proceedings or whether an order is ‘interim’ or temporary’? About 15% of the report consists of blank paper. In respect of appeals he quotes Mr Justice Mumby as saying: ‘… the appeal system must be clear, coherent and as simple as possible for the litigant to understand and operate. At present the system is none of these things. I would venture to suggest that any sensible regime for appeals, particularly from justices, should not merely be comprehensive but also be simple and readily comprehensible both to litigants in person and, dare I say it, also to the court staff.’