David Burrows examines costs & appeals under the Family Procedure Rules 2010
One of the more unfortunate claims made for the new Family Procedure Rules 2010 (FPR 2010) is that they promote something akin to a family court (as first proposed by the 1974 Finer report on single parent families). If anything these rules push that family law ideal still further away; and the costs (FPR 2010 Pt 28) and appeals (Pt 30) provisions illustrate this particularly starkly in their contrast between Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR 1998) straightforwardness and Family Procedure Rules Committee (FPRC) muddled thinking at the edges.
Parts 28 and 30 respectively incorporate CPR 1998 or are derived from them. but as soon as the rule drafting strays far from CPR 1998, the litigant is mired in an un-family court-like slough (the need of a layperson to understand these rules must be born always in mind).
Costs rules
Many parts of FPR 2010 are derived verbatim from CPR 1998, but for reasons which are not explained, FPRC has reversed this
