MATRIMONIAL CASES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 186, 10 August 1935, Page 10

MATRIMONIAL CASES

NEW COURT PROCEDURE GOOD RESULTS IN LONDON [ British Oflic.nl Wireless, j RUGBY, Aug. 8. A report has been issued by one of the metropolitan magistrates, Mr Claud Mullins, upon the. new procedure in the hearing of matrimonial disputes which was introduced at the beginning of the year at the South-Western Police Court. The experin’ient, has aroused considerable interest in circles concerned with legal and social reform, and the results for the first seven months are commented upon favourably in the Press. The policy of the Court has been to sec that as far as possible applicants for separation orders under summary procedure realised the consequences that would follow the order before a .summons was issued; to facilitate interviews between the parties and the Court’s probation officers out of Cour ( t in advance of public hearings; and to humanise the proceedings so as to en-

sure that magistrates got to understand the real causes of each case of domestic misunderstanding. With the latter object, hearings were gor.erallv held not in the Police Court but in the magistrate’s vonsulting room. In the first seven months of this year 220 summonses have been issued, of which 38 cases have boon settled out of Court after interviews wi*h probation officers, and seven cases after a hearing following furtliot talks with probation "officers. Tn 63 casus whore proceedings were adjourned or interim orders wore granted there hav? boon no further proceedings, while .‘.3 caseI have beer, dismissed. Ont of a to»a’ of 220, therefore, onlv 89 . uses h-a /p resulted in final orders for separation and/or maintenance The report states that the magistrate is satisfied that t.o on P is denied !r’s or hrr legal rights under the proeoduie. while healings on the old-fashioned lines would certainly have resulted in a considerably greater number of final