5 November 2024
Nick Gova featured in the legal press on premature divorces due to computer error
Family Partner Nick Gova has been featured widely in the legal press, including in Edward Fennell’s Legal Diary and Today’s Family Lawyer, commenting on the computer glitch which erroneously led to many divorces being prematurely granted.
79 divorces were approved incorrectly after an online system failed to detect that they were submitted exactly a year after marriage, when the law only allows divorces from a year and a day.
Nick’s comments are included in the ‘Legal Comment of the Week’ section of the Legal Diary, which is compiled by longstanding legal journalist Edward Fennell. He is the sole lawyer quoted in Today’s Family Lawyer article.
Nick remarks:
“Is there one rule for the court and another for the lawyers? Not too recently where a junior solicitor erroneously applied for a final order on divorce, the courts refused to overturn the final order. In that case, Sir Andrew McFarlane stated: ‘There is a strong public policy interest in respecting the certainty and finality that flows from a final divorce order and maintaining the status quo that it has established’.
“We now have a situation where there is an error of the court and its systems, rather than ‘human error’. Surely, consistency must prevail. There remain significant legal and practical considerations which stem from any decision. Not least, the toll on those believing they were divorced.”
Read Nick’s comments in:
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