Family court judge rules on whether 79 couples are really divorced
The IndependentGet the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. In his judgement Sir Andrew said the government tried to track down the 79 former couples, and succeeded in notifying “most of the 158 people involved”. open image in gallery President of Family Division Sir Andrew McFarlane, with Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and Sir James Holman British Judge of the High Court of England and Wales Despite the error with the portal being noticed in November 2022, investigations were not carried out into how many couples may have been allowed to submit faulty applications. Sir Andrew criticised officials for not finding out the scale of the problem earlier, adding if the courts and tribunal service “had conducted a proper investigation in November 2022 when the problem was first drawn to their attention, it is likely that none, or almost none, of the 79 cases would have had final orders made”. In his judgement, Sir Andrew concluded that the 79 final orders of divorce are “voidable and not void”, meaning that the couples are divorced but they could try and argue that the divorce was unlawful.
History of this topic
Dozens of divorces wrongly approved due to online system error, High Court told
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