Legal background
- The principal statute governing divorce, judicial separation and nullity of marriage in England and Wales is the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. This is a consolidating Act that in large part consolidated provisions enacted by the Divorce Reform Act 1969 (which introduced irretrievable breakdown of the marriage as the sole ground for divorce) and by the Nullity of Marriage Act 1971 (which provided that a decree of nullity in the case of a voidable marriage would no longer have retrospective effect).
- The Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 has, since enactment, been amended by a number of other statutes, for example to deal with a marriage formed by the conversion of a civil partnership and to remove the provision that voided the marriage of a same-sex couple.
- Certain other statutes make ancillary provision in matrimonial proceedings. Part II of the Family Law Act 1986, for instance, makes provision for the recognition of divorces, annulments and legal separations ordered outside England and Wales.
- The Civil Partnership Act 2004 largely mirrors this provision for civil partnership dissolution, separation and nullity. There are some differences, including adultery not being an available fact in the dissolution of a civil partnership. The Civil Partnership Act 2004 was not a consolidating Act, and so there are also some presentational differences. The civil partnership equivalents of a decree nisi and decree absolute are a conditional order and a final order, petitions are applications and petitioners are applicants. The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act mirrors, in turn, this later terminology in respect of proceedings following a marriage. The approach to drafting that was possible with the Civil Partnership Act 2004 means that this Act requires less consequential amendment than the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.
- Because divorce (or civil partnership dissolution) effects a change of legal status, there are also references to divorce in some statutes outside family law.
- The practice and procedure in matrimonial proceedings – such as when applications can be made and how the court deals with them – are set by rules of court. These can be found principally at Part 7 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010 and the associated Practice Directions, supplemented by other Parts of the Rules dealing with matters applying more widely to family proceedings, such as case management and service of documents.
