The Law Lords have decided two important cases. One commentator said the judgement could frame divorce law 'for a generation'.
It is absurd that something as important as a country's law on divorce should be decided by a little group of judges. They have no mandate to think of the perverse incentives their law-creation might result in. They are not required to think of the impact on society.
The law on divorce in this country should be decided, after national debate, by parliament.
Welfare benefits have previously reduced the proportion of those in the poorer quarter of society who get married. It did this by reducing the natural incentive for a woman to get married. The divorce law may now similarly reduce the proportion of those in the top ten per cent of society who get married. The men will know that in a divorce, they could lose what many of them are bound to regard as an unfairly large part of their money.
If there are few marriages, then few families will stick together and more children will be damaged. The law on divorce is too important to be left to lawyers.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Parenting
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If we are to have rule by lawyers they must be elected. Pre-Nuptial Contracts are to save the parties from being bled dry by lawyers whose cost-plus mentality is to manufacture conflict and pursue attrition for profit.
Judges are superannuated barristers and retain the arrogant and dissembling approach of that "profession". To have the fate of entrepreneurial businesses, children, and the capacity of parties to a divorce to ever form a trusting relationship elsewhere requires the unlimited discretion of judges to be curtailed by more precise drafting of legislation.
Had Mr Miller been punished through fault the very generous settlement could have been understood, but without fault it simply become far too risky for anyone to anticipate investing in a startup business where the entrepreneur has a marriage.
Posted by: Voyager at May 28, 2006 11:01 AM
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Whilst recognising your line of thinking that 'the law on divorce is too important to be left to lawyers', is it not naive to believe that parliament would have acheived more?
Bearing in mind that it was parliament that passed the Human Rights Act - look at the problems that has caused...albeit in the hands of lawyers!
It appears that the country is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to legislation.
Posted by: Daniel Swan at May 25, 2006 10:23 PM