McKenzie friends and litigants in person

Litigants in person

Following cuts to the availability of legal aid in family proceedings made by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the number of litigants in person has increased. A litigant in person has the same right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as a litigant who is legally represented and is entitled to expect the courts to take positive steps to ensure that their ECHR, art 6 rights are met. Where a litigant in person represents themselves and exercises their own right of audience, the court may actively to assist that person to clarify their case. However, the court must be careful not to provide assistance to a litigant in person in such a way as to infringe the ECHR, art 6 rights of any other party.

Findings in a Ministry of Justice report on litigants in person included that the majority of litigants in person in the study's sample were in person because they were ineligible for, or had been unable to obtain, legal aid, but could not afford legal

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Monumental Supreme Court decision on matrimonialisation and sharing principle (Standish v Standish)

Family analysis: The Supreme Court’s much-anticipated judgment confirms unequivocally that the sharing principle does not apply to non-matrimonial property. Sharing of matrimonial property will usually be 50:50, though there may be a departure from equal division where justified. Non-matrimonial property typically has either a pre-marital origin, or, where it is received during the currency of the marriage, an external source (eg an inheritance). Title to an asset is expressly not determinative as to whether that asset is or is not matrimonial. Though non-matrimonial property may become matrimonial (ie ‘matrimonialisation’) this will depend on how the parties have been dealing with the asset and whether, over time, they have been treating that asset as shared between them. The concept of matrimonialisation is to be applied neither ‘widely’ nor ‘narrowly’ (contrary to what the Court of Appeal had held)—again, the enquiry should focus on how the parties have dealt with the asset. Where an asset is transferred from one spouse to another with the intention to save tax (as had occurred in the case), this will not normally show that the asset is being treated as shared. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the decision to dismiss the wife’s appeal, though it did not wholly agree with the Court of Appeal’s reasoning. Pursuant to that decision (made on the sharing basis) the wife would be provided with circa £25m of the total assets figure of circa £132.6m, being half of the matrimonial assets figure of £50.48m. David Wilkinson, solicitor at Slater Heelis, considers the judgment.

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