The biggest change to family law in nearly half a century comes into force on April 6, and thousands of couples are flooding the courts with their petitions before they are unable to do so for the week ahead of the change.
Thankfully, however, the law will actually make the divorce process more straightforward with the introduction of the “no-fault” divorce.
One of the main changes of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 is that couples no longer need to give a reason for wanting a divorce, removing the need to “blame” one party or the other for unreasonable behaviour, or demonstrate that they have been separated for a minimum of two years. The aim, amongst other things, is to reduce the amount of bitterness, conflict, and acrimony that blame often leads to in the divorce process, which in turn can lead to lengthy legal battles tying up the courts’ time.
Before the courts take on the new system, though, the current online divorce application system needs to be closed for a week to be able to handle the new rules when they come into force.
This temporary, week-long shutdown has prompted thousands of couples to pull the trigger early, rather than wait a week, which law firms have described as a “surprising” result of the new legislation.
Research from Stowe Family Law found that 43% of people believed that being able to “blame” the other party for the breakdown of the marriage would affect the financial settlement in their favour or influence the courts decision in custody hearings.
Managing partner at the firm, Amanda Phillips-Wyld, said this was not the case: “This perhaps points towards a lack of understanding as to what no-fault divorce means. We are therefore finding that people are enquiring about divorcing while they can still apportion blame to their spouse with the assumption that they will get more out of the divorce.
“But the reality is that blame in a divorce achieves very little. In actual fact, taking away the blame is what will help people focus on the important issues and has no impact on the financial or child settlements.
“The rise in divorce enquiries shows how deeply the blame game is embedded in our culture, an in many instances, apportioning blame is part of a person’s catharsis when filing.”
Ms Phillips-Wyld added that the country should “embrace” the new laws, pointing out that they will be beneficial both “from a practical standpoint” and a “mental health perspective.”
“The new laws are designed to help reduce the emotionally traumatic process of going through a divorce.”
