Family lawyers are urging the court to uphold dozens of divorces that were mistakenly approved due to a computer error.
A High Court hearing on Wednesday heard that 79 divorce applications were wrongly approved 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.
Lawyers for the Lord Chancellor are asking the court to rule that the divorce orders are ‘voidable, as opposed to ‘void’, meaning they would still stand, claiming that voiding the orders would have ‘significant legal and practical consequences’.
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‘Quite frankly ridiculous’
Spear’s Recommended family lawyer, Katie McCann, founder and managing partner of Lowry Legal, said it would be ‘quite frankly ridiculous’ if the ruling did not stand in ‘these circumstances’.
‘So much happens around the time of a divorce that would be affected if these divorces were found not to stand; such as financial final orders, setting out who owns the family home for example. Some parties may be remarried which in effect would mean that they were committing bigamy!’ she said.
McCann added: ‘The list of things that would need to be unravelled is extensive. Let’s hope that sense prevails and the judgement finds that in these unfortunate circumstances an exception can be made and the divorces stand.’
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In a written submission, Sir James Eadie KC said: ‘The undoing of final divorce orders has the consequence that separated couples who were, and thought they were, divorced will be held to still be married.’
‘That has significant legal and practical consequences.’ Sir James added: ‘For the couples concerned, those consequences are likely to be both highly unfortunate and highly unwelcome.’
The judgment will be given in writing at a later date.
Computer says ‘no’ divorce
Earlier this year Vardags applied for a divorce granted in error by someone ‘clicking the wrong button’ to be ‘set aside’.
Lawyers at the esteemed law firm had intended to apply for a divorce for another client but a member of staff had accidentally opened the file for another couple, identified as ‘Mr and Mrs Williams’.
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Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the family division, rejected the application by Vardags, saying: ‘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.’
Ayesha Vardag, founder and president of Vardags, has stood by the member of staff who made the mistake and said the judge had made a ‘bad decision’ that effectively meant if ‘the computer says no, you’re divorced’.
