Gohil v Gohil
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Wilson |
| Judgment Date | 25 June 2008 |
| Neutral Citation | [2008] EWCA Civ 830 |
| Date | 25 June 2008 |
| Docket Number | Case No: B4/2008/0910 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
[2008] EWCA Civ 830
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE PRINCIPAL REGISTRY OF THE FAMILY DIVISION
(MRS JUSTICE BARON)
LOWER COURT No: FD02D03678
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Wilson
Case No: B4/2008/0910
Mr P Mitchell (instructed by Alexiou Fisher Philipps) appeared on behalf of the Applicant'Husband'
The Respondent 'Wife' appeared in person of her own motion but was not asked to address the court.
Mr Gohil, whom it will be convenient to describe as the husband notwithstanding a decree absolute of divorce, seeks permission to appeal against an order for disclosure (made in proceedings consequent upon a much earlier order for ancillary relief) made by Mrs Justice Baron in the High Court, Family Division, on 3 April 2008. Her order was that the husband should disclose to the wife certain bank statements within 28 days, i.e. by 1 May 2008. In the light of the short time prescribed by the judge between the date of the making of her order and the date of its implementation, I was and remain surprised that the husband, who is a solicitor and is represented by top class matrimonial solicitors and counsel, should have waited for the full 21 days, namely until 24 April 2008, before filing his Appellant's Notice. When on 2 May 2008 the papers were presented to me for consideration on paper, I noticed that, in the Appellant's Notice, the husband declared an intention to supply the court with both a transcript of the judgment of Baron J. and counsel's skeleton argument in support of the proposed appeal only by 8 May 2008. My view was that, because of the delay in filing the Appellant's Notice, the matter was too urgent to admit a delay in despatch of the application for permission until 8 May. It seemed to me to be a very short point, not hard to resolve, which I could properly despatch without those documents. My decision was to refuse permission and the husband has availed himself of his present right to renew the application at an oral hearing.
Today I have the benefit of the skeleton argument signed by Mr Mitchell, who has appeared for the husband on recent occasions before Baron J. Most curiously, however, I still lack an official transcript, or any transcript, of the judge's judgment. Mr Mitchell tells me that his solicitors bespoke a transcript by letter dated 23 April 2008; that the transcript did not materialise; and that it was only yesterday, 24 June 2008, that they pressed for its production. Indeed I would have expected that, in the absence, for whatever reason of the approved transcript of the judge's judgment, a note of the judgment made by Mr Mitchell or by his solicitors would have been placed before me. What —instead —has arrived this morning is an official transcript of the proceedings before Baron J. on 3 April 2008, which enables me to discern the short submissions of the wife and of Mr Mitchell on the point of disclosure; but the judge's rulings thereon were clearly contained in two short judgments in respect of which, in the transcript provided for me today, the reader is referred to separate transcripts; and those separate transcripts are available neither to me nor to Mr Mitchell.
In these unhappy circumstances, which do no credit to the admirable firm of Alexiou Fisher Philipps, it seems to me that the matter must proceed; and, because I remain of the view that this application for permission is easy to resolve and that it is relatively easy for me to infer how the judge's judgment ran, —I also have in that regard the assistance of being able to discern the way in which she crafted her written refusal to the husband of permission to appeal to this court —I feel in no way disabled from proceeding with this hearing.
The application in which Baron J. made her order for disclosure is an application by the wife to set aside what appears to be a comprehensive order for ancillary relief made by consent on 30 April 200That was the date at which the parties attended an FDR meeting before Baron J. and, although the wife now represents herself, she was at that time represented by counsel. The meeting led to the making of a consent order which provided for capital provision to be made by the husband to the wife in the sum of £270,000 and for periodical payments to be made by him for her and for the three children of the family, all or whom were at that time living with her. The husband's case today is that the oldest child, a boy now aged 16, now lives with him and that only the two younger children, namely a boy now aged 14 and a girl now aged 11, remain living with the wife. The present application is made by the wife for the court to set aside the order for ancillary relief in her favour and, in lieu thereof, to make enlarged provision for her, on the basis that the husband was guilty of material non-disclosure in the proceedings which led to the consent order.
In that regard there is a recital to the consent...
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