Family Justice Courts Case Highlights

The consequences of hiding assets should be sufficiently severe that it encourages and fully incentivises parties to give full and frank disclosure. In assessing maintenance for a child, the court will only bear in mind the reasonable expenses of the child, having regard to the relevant circumstances. In the context of this case, the court held that it would be inappropriate to pass judgment on whether the child should attend certain enrichment classes.

In a dual-income marriage, if one party was less successful in breadwinning but made substantial contributions in homemaking, the ANJ approach is a fair and appropriate approach that recognises both parties’ contributions and guides the court to reach a just outcome.

Even if a party’s misconduct may not amount to a criminal act, ascribing a negative value to their share of the indirect contributions may be justified.

Where the order on the division of matrimonial assets is made by consent, the evidence of parties’ knowledge and intentions at the time the agreement and the consent order were made plays a most significant role in aiding the court exercising its discretion under s 112(4) of the Women’s Charter 1961 to vary a consent order which is silent on an issue in order to render the original order workable.

The court’s power to divide assets is exercised over the material gains of the marital partnership.

The structured approach in ANJ is a guide in achieving a just and equitable division of matrimonial assets; it was never intended to supplant the broad-brush approach in dividing matrimonial assets.

The court will not adopt a mechanistic lens when assessing parties’ day-to-day contributions. Instead, the focus is on the primary roles played by each party.

Sums that the court notionally restores to the pool of matrimonial assets as a consequence of giving effect to an adverse inference should not be credited as the direct contributions of the party against whom the adverse inference was made.

Labels are intended as nothing more than convenient heuristic tools to aid the court in ascribing appropriate weight to a party’s non-financial contributions to a marriage.

Even if the testator suffers from a serious mental illness, such as dementia, at the material time of executing the will, the court is not precluded from finding that the testator had testamentary capacity.