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Financial provision, childrens' rights, family disputes — 14 family law cases
Family law governs the legal relationships formed within domestic and personal life — marriage, civil partnership, cohabitation, parenthood, and the dissolution of those ties. At its core, the subject asks how the state should intervene when private arrangements break down, and on whose terms. It draws on statute (the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, the Children Act 1989, and the Family Law Act 1996 among others) as well as a rich body of case law that shapes how courts exercise wide discretionary powers.
Four doctrines give the subject its architecture. The welfare principle makes the child's welfare the paramount consideration in any dispute about upbringing, and it runs through almost every Children Act decision. The section 25 factors framework guides courts dividing matrimonial finances on divorce, with the sharing and needs principles — crystallised in White v White and Miller; McFarlane — acting as the practical touchstones. The concept of unconscionability underpins constructive trust claims by cohabitants who lack formal legal title. Finally, the doctrine of consent and capacity cuts across marriage, medical treatment of children, and reproductive decisions, with Gillick competence marking the point at which a child may make autonomous choices.
Several areas remain doctrinally unsettled and are actively tested in assessments. The law on divorce fact-finding was exposed as harsh and outdated in Owens v Owens, a pressure that fed directly into the no-fault divorce reforms under the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020. Prenuptial agreements occupy uncertain ground — binding in principle after Radmacher v Granatino but still unenforceable as a matter of strict law, awaiting Law Commission-backed reform. Cohabitants on relationship breakdown have no statutory scheme equivalent to that for spouses, leaving them reliant on trust and estoppel principles that produce unpredictable outcomes; calls for reform have grown louder and a strong student should be able to articulate the gap.
When a court determines any question relating to a child's upbringing or property, the child's welfare is the court's paramount consideration under section 1 of the Children Act 1989. This is not merely the most important factor to weigh — it is the single overriding objective that can displace all others.
White v White established that there is no place for gender discrimination in ancillary relief and that equality of division is the yardstick against which any proposed award must be checked. Departure from equal sharing is permitted but must be justified, typically by reference to needs or a good reason to treat non-matrimonial property differently.
Following Radmacher v Granatino, a prenuptial agreement will be given decisive weight by the court where both parties entered it freely, with a full appreciation of its implications, and where it is not unfair to hold them to it. This stops short of full contractual enforceability but significantly shapes how courts approach the section 25 exercise.
A cohabitant without legal title may claim a beneficial interest under a common intention constructive trust if they can show a shared intention to hold the property beneficially and detrimental reliance on that intention. The courts look for express discussions or, failing that, the whole course of conduct between the parties.
A child below the age of majority is competent to consent to medical treatment — without parental involvement — if they have sufficient intelligence and maturity to understand fully what is proposed. This principle, originating in Gillick, has been extended and qualified by later cases and sits in tension with the court's inherent jurisdiction to override a competent child's refusal in life-or-death situations.
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“Supreme Court gives prenuptial agreements decisive weight in divorce settlements”
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