In his fifth FPR update, David Burrows looks at rules on evidence & disclosure
The procedural rules about evidence in the Family Procedure Rules 2010 (FPR 2010) are derived almost verbatim from the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR 1998): Pt 22 (entitled “evidence”) is derived from CPR 1998 Pt 32; Pt 23 (“miscellaneous rules about evidence”) from Pt 33; Pt 25 (“experts” and their evidence) from Pt 35. Part 21 (“miscellaneous rules about disclosure and inspection of documents”) telescopes CPR 1998 disclosure and inspection into one rule only, r 21.1 (rr 21.2 and 21.3 deal with disclosure against a third party and public interest immunity, both of which are only tangentially relevant to the main subject).
Evidence and the overriding objective
Evidence rules must be considered (as with any other of the new rules) with the overriding objective in mind. A case must be dealt with “in ways which are proportionate to…the complexity of the issues”; and issues must be defined at an early stage (rr 1.1(2)(b) and 1.4(2)(b)(i)). These amongst other case management features will be grist to the evidence rules mill.
Rules
