Preliminary comments
2.The preparation for this hearing can only be described as shocking:i)Paragraph 15 of the High Court Statement of Efficient Conduct of Financial Remedy Proceedings provides that skeleton arguments for interim hearings must not exceed 10 pages. The husband’s skeleton argument ran to 24 pages and the wife’s skeleton argument ran to 14 pages. ii)Skeleton arguments were due by 11:00 on the working day before this hearing. Both parties filed late. The husband’s skeleton argument was filed only on the morning of the hearing. The wife’s skeleton argument was filed at around 17:30 the day before the hearing. iii)Paragraph 18 of Sir Jonathan Cohen’s order dated 15 March 2022 provided that the husband’s statement was to be filed and served by 12:00 on 21 March 2022. The husband’s statement is dated 22 March 2022. I do not know when it was filed, but I am told by the wife’s representatives that it was only served on her on 24 March 2022.iv)Paragraph 20 of that same order provided that the parties’ statements to be filed and served for this hearing would be limited to 6 pages each with any exhibit accompanying the same limited to 10 pages (a total of 16 pages). The husband’s statement ran to 11 pages and its exhibit ran to 15 pages (a total of 26 pages). The wife’s statement also ran to 11 pages and its exhibit ran to 28 pages (a total of 39 pages). v)FPR PD 27A paragraph 5.1 provides that unless the court has specifically directed otherwise that there shall be one bundle limited to 350 pages of text. I have been provided with four bundles respectively containing 579 pages, 279 pages, 666 pages, and 354 pages (a total of 1,878 pages). 3.This utter disregard for the relevant guidance, procedure, and indeed orders is totally unacceptable. I struggle to understand the mentality of litigants and their advisers who still seem to think that guidance, procedure, and orders can be blithely ignored. In Re W (A Child) (Adoption Order: Leave to Oppose) [2013] EWCA Civ 1177, [2014] 1 WLR 1993, paras 50-51, Sir James Munby P, having referred to “a deeply rooted culture in the family courts which, however long established, will no longer be tolerated”, continued:“I refer to the slapdash, lackadaisical and on occasions almost contumelious attitude which still far too frequently characterises the response to orders made by family courts. There is simply no excuse for this. Orders, including interlocutory orders, must be obeyed and complied with to the letter and on time. Too often they are not. They are not preferences, requests or mere indications; they are orders.” That was nine years ago. But nothing seems to change. In the very recent decision of WC v HC (Financial Remedies Agreements) [2022] EWFC 22 Peel J astutely pointed out at [1(i)]:“Court Orders, Practice Directions and Statements of Efficient Conduct are there to be complied with, not ignored. The purpose of the restriction on statement length is partly to focus the parties' minds on relevant evidence, and partly to ensure a level playing field. Why is it fair for one party to follow the rules, but the other party to ignore them? Why is it fair for the complying party to be left with the feeling that the non-complying party has been able to adduce more evidence to his/her apparent advantage?”It should be understood that the deliberate flouting of orders, guidance and procedure is a form of forensic cheating, and should be treated as such. Advisers should clearly understand that such non-compliance may well be regarded by the court as professional misconduct leading to a report to their regulatory body.
- respondent wife
- Mr Justice Mostyn:
- Preliminary comments
- Costs
- £5,401,503.
- Background facts
- former
- The wife’s application to be released from her undertaking
- Anonymity
- Mode of taking Evidence.
- The Judge Ordinary of the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes may sit in Chambers.
- The Treasury to cause Chambers to be provided.
- Powers of Judge when sitting in Chambers.
- as if sitting in open Court
- The Registrars to do all Acts heretofore done by Surrogates.
- The language of the order provides for privacy at the hearing. It has nothing to do with secrecy as to the facts of the case.
- during all my experience at the Bar and on the Bench I have never heard it suggested that there is the slightest obligation of secrecy as to what passes in chambers. Everything which there transpires is and always has been spoken of with precisely the same freedom as that which passes in Court
- Beyond and besides this the Court acquires no power or jurisdiction over an individual by reason of his having become a litigant. He remains in all other respects as free and as independent of interference from the Court as he was before the suit was instituted or as any other member of the public is who has never been a litigant.
- the fact of his having been compelled to be a litigant cannot put him for all time in the position of being in statu pupillari to the judge before whom the cause has come
- , I rebel against the suggestion that according to English law he may do this only so far as it may accord with the notions of some judge who, as such, has no more authority to act towards him as a moral director in his behaviour in life after the suit is over than has the man in the street.
- The conception of the Court interfering with litigants otherwise than by granting the relief which it is empowered and bound to grant is wholly vicious and strikes at the foundation of the status and duties of judges.
- The serious encroachment on personal liberty which is here proposed is not supported by a single decision. There is on record no case where the Courts have asserted a right to control the personal acts of litigants after the conclusion of the suit except to enforce the relief granted.
- I cannot forbear adding that in my opinion nothing would be more detrimental to the administration of justice in any country than to entrust the judges with the power of covering the proceedings before them with the mantle of inviolable secrecy.”
- reporting
- unless derived from any part of the proceedings conducted in open court