The new family court system has come into being at last, and the orders and procedure have apparently been drafted by the judges.
One interesting provision is that no litigant should leave court without a copy of the order made in their case.
At a recent conference in London, I hear that one of our district judges approached a High Court judge to query this.
He pointed out, as many of us have been doing for ages, that court staffing around the country has been so decimated that even the typists are often three weeks behind.
When this was pointed out to him, the High Court judge remarked airily ‘get your clerk to prepare the order’.
This would be nice! A number of courts are run without clerks or ushers and you cannot expect the judge to halt their next case to sit down and type out an order.
It is time that the higher judiciary had a look at the real world created by the insane cutbacks made by the justice ministry before they draft totally unrealistic rules.
It is also high time that urgent increases in staffing were implemented.
John Greenwood, retired solicitor and Crown court recorder, Chippenham, Wiltshire
