Are there alternatives to divorce?
Divorce is the main way to legally recognise that a marriage has come to an end. It allows the court to separate a couple’s finances and once granted, the parties are legally separate and able to re-marry again in the future.
Annulments are sometimes an option. Whereas divorce ends a marriage, annulments declare the marriage was not valid in the first place. The grounds for seeking an annulment are very fact specific (such as a lack of consent to marriage) but if it is granted, the parties are separated and it is as if they were never married. The court can however make financial awards similar to those in divorce proceedings after an annulment.
Sometimes couples may not wish to divorce but want legal recognition that they have separated. In such circumstances, they may consider a Judicial Separation. This grants the court powers to make some financial orders similar to those it can make on a divorce (such as spousal maintenance) but not all orders (such as pension sharing). With a Judicial Separation, the parties remain married so they cannot remarry and either party may seek a divorce at a later date.
A final option is to separate but not obtain a divorce. The court will not make any awards so the parties remain married but the parties can enter into a separation agreement regulating their finances. However, if either party seeks a divorce in the future, the court is not bound by the separation agreement and may decide to regulate the couple’s finances in a different way than was previously agreed.
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Local government legislation formerly stipulated that councillors must be physically present to vote and this requirement has already led to the widespread cancellation of Council meetings. There is a limit to what can be achieved under the chair’s emergency powers and delegation to officers.
The Government has now legislated to allow for remote voting until 7 May 2021. The secondary legislation required was issued in draft on 2 April and has been in force since Saturday 4 April.
The legislation allows for committee meetings to go ahead where members and any members of the public attending remotely can all times “hear (and where possible see) and be heard (and where possible be seen) by the other members in attendance”.
It remains to be seen how many local authorities take up the opportunity to hold a virtual committee meeting. Concern has been expressed that the demographic of local councillors may mean that members have difficulty with the technological mechanisms for holding such meetings. However, the message from the Secretary of State is clear that wherever possible, the planning system should keep moving in these current times.
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Our employment experts Jamie Gamble and Roisin Patton take you through the key aspects of conducting cost reduction redundancies, but with a focus on aspects that make this exercise different this time. For instance:
- How are you going to conduct sensitive meetings remotely?
- How are you going to ensure that dismissing any furloughed staff will be fair? You may have furloughed at speed, but redundancy selection criteria cannot be defined by such factors.
- Will you use this time to review your selection criteria if you already have some in place?
- How will you deal with individuals who are shielding, have child care issues or are pregnant?
- How do you ensure this is all done sensitively and fairly for those roles that are being made redundant, but also for those who continue to work for you but are still isolated on furlough or working from home?
- And what are the risks for making redundancies in this “new normal”?
Although you may be perfectly familiar with redundancy exercises these are far from normal times and it is therefore worth pausing to think about the impact that Covid-19 might have and what else you need to think about or plan for.
The webinar was recorded on Thursday 2nd July.
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