Computers should handle divorces instead of solicitors who make "slapdash" errors, former Family Court president says

Computers should handle divorces rather than solicitors, the former Family Court president has warned, after accusing regional centres of being "slapdash".

Sir James Munby, formerly the most senior family court judge in England and Wales, said that he looks forward to the "entire process of divorce" being made digital.

An online divorce system was rolled out to the general public in May 2018 when Sir James was the president. However Sir James has since made clear that “the entire process” needs digitising.

Currently, couples wishing to divorce can begin the process online and continue all the way to decree absolute. However, solicitors acting on behalf of clients must begin the process in paper form.

After analysing a number of cases involving "defective" divorces at a family court hearing in London earlier this month, Sir James aired his thoughts on the benefits of fully digital divorces.

Lawyers had told him how people had made mistakes, including basic spelling errors, which had not been spotted by staff or judges at regional divorce centres, when filing in divorce paperwork.

Sir James said some of the cases he had analysed featured a "slapdash approach" by either a judge or member of staff and suggested that the underlying problem was that people were "under pressure" and more "prone to error".

As a result, he has had to make orders allowing these divorces to proceed. "It is, unhappily, notorious that some regional divorce units have become bywords for delay and inefficiency, essentially because HMCTS [HM Courts & Tribunals Service] has been unable or unwilling to furnish them with adequate numbers of staff and judges," said Sir James, who retired as president of the Family Division of the High Court last year.

"The sooner the entire process of divorce is made digital from beginning to end the better."

Sir James retired as president of the Family Division of the High Court last year - the most senior family court judge in England and Wales - but still sits as a judge.

While overseeing a separate case earlier this year, Sir James had told lawyers how he discovered gremlins in a prototype of that online system after deciding to conduct his own checks.

He said he had entered "garbage" in answers to online questions and found that the system did not reject them.

Sir James said he told IT specialists that software had to pick up obvious errors and that

the system had to be "fool proof", adding: "I am assured by HMCTS that the gremlins have all been identified and removed."

The divorce application, acknowledgement of service and Decree Nisi applications are already available online. The outcomes of Decree Nisi and Decree Absolute will be made available online later this year.

A HMCTS spokesman said: “Since we introduced the online divorce service last year, over 38,000 applications have been made and the error rate has fallen from 40% in the paper process to less than 1% with the online solution.

Later this year, people will be able to go through an uncontested legal divorce process from beginning to end online.

“Divorce cases are now being dealt with quicker since we increased the number of judicial sitting days and recruited extra judges and staff to meet increased demand in the family courts.”

Prior to 2015, couples wanting to divorce had to go to one of 47 regional courts across the country. These were then centralised into just 11 Regional Divorce Centres.