From the Middle Ages onwards, the dominant idea was that marriage was a sacrament. I will then consider attitudes towards family law before returning to my title: Is Family Law law?įamily law as practised in this country is a relatively recent creation. I will touch on its history and describe what it has become. The topic I have chosen is family law itself. I have tried to find a subject that would be worthy of Nicholas’s consideration. When he left the circuit in 2001, the FLBA took him for a farewell boat trip on the Manchester Ship Canal, and I was touched when they did the same for me sixteen years later, sending me on my way with gifts of a flat cap and a mug with a whippet on it. He had become the circuit’s first FDLJ in 1996 and to this day he is warmly remembered by family lawyers from Chester to Carlisle. “You’ll love it”, he said, and he was right. I remain permanently dispirited about much of what is (and what is not) going on in the family justice system, although since family cases now represent only about half my workload, I feel both out of touch and, to an extent, disempowered.Ī lesser man with those feelings might have called it a day on family law, but Nicholas was not that man and in 2010 he became President of the Family Division for all too short a time before his retirement in 2012.Īs a new judge during his short presidency, my abiding memory is of being called into his room and coming out five minutes later having agreed to spend half my working life on the Northern Circuit for the foreseeable future. For example, during a 2006 lecture as a judge of the Court of Appeal – a memorial lecture no less, in honour of Allan Levy and David Hershman – he said this: He was also unsparingly frank for a senior judge.
By that I mean that he was tough (I bear the scars) but also humane, with a combination of erudition, energy and social conscience that found expression in thoughtful, well-written decisions that clarified and developed the law, with an equal concern for good practice and procedure. For me, Nicholas was a beau idéal, an excellent example of everything a family lawyer and judge should be.
#I never had thoughts that control me series
It is therefore an honour and a pleasure to contribute this fourth lecture to the series celebrating Nicholas Wall. It is a chance to celebrate their memory and to pass it on. It is a tribute to someone, no longer with us, who was recognised by their colleagues as being special. But the memorial lecture is in a class of its own. The after-dinner speech, with its unrivalled possibilities for enriching or wrecking a convivial evening must be up there somewhere. Some would urge the claims of the shrieval lecture, such as those given at Hereford or Oxford. Moving up, there is the glory of a keynote address, perhaps even to an international audience. There is the common or garden presentation, maybe as a panel member, maybe as a solo speaker. There is a hierarchy in the matter of talks. War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Chamber.Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber.Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber.Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber.Health, Education and Social Care Chamber.Employment Tribunals (England and Wales).Judiciary and Data Protection: privacy notice.
History of the judiciary in England and Wales.About the judiciary About the judiciary.
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