Sir James Munby

Sir James Munby

Sir James Lawrence Munby is a retired English judge who was President of the Family Division of the High Court of England and Wales.

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Book Review: Dictionary of the Court of Protection

Book Review: Dictionary of the Court of Protection

Almost a dozen years ago, in September 2013, I was privileged to welcome the very first Dictionary when I wrote the foreword to the first edition of the Dictionary of Financial Remedies. The Dictionary was innovative: in concept simple but brilliant; in content authoritative, a masterly distillation of the law

The Origin, History and Present Status of the Principal Registry of the Family Division

The Origin, History and Present Status of the Principal Registry of the Family Division

Everyone knows that Baroness Butler-Sloss ascended from the rank of Registrar at Somerset House to President of the Family Division via the High Court and the Court of Appeal. Wikipedia states, ‘She was appointed a Registrar at the Principal Registry of the Family Division in 1970’. We will show that

Groundhog Day Again: A Response to The Transparency Reporting Pilot for Financial Remedy Proceedings

Groundhog Day Again: A Response to The Transparency Reporting Pilot for Financial Remedy Proceedings

The Financial Remedies Sub-Group of The Transparency Implementation Group, chaired by HHJ Farquhar, produced its long-awaited Final Report, dated April 2023 but published in May 2023, Transparency in the Financial Remedies Court. On 6 July 2023 I published Groundhog Day: A Response to the Report of the Financial Remedies Sub-Group

The Use and Misuse of the Rubric in the Family Courts

The Use and Misuse of the Rubric in the Family Courts

In a familiar line of cases of which the first was BT v CU [2021] EWFC 87, [2022] 1 WLR 1349, paras [100]–[114], and the last In re PP (A Child: Anonymisation) [2023] EWHC 330 (Fam), [2023] 4 WLR 48, paras [49]–[62], and Augousti v Matharu [2023] EWHC

Groundhog Day: a Response to the Report of the Financial Remedies Sub-Group of the Transparency Implementation Group

Groundhog Day: a Response to the Report of the Financial Remedies Sub-Group of the Transparency Implementation Group

The Financial Remedies Sub-Group of The Transparency Implementation Group, chaired by HHJ Farquhar, has produced its long-awaited Final Report, dated April 2023 but published in May 2023, Transparency in the Financial Remedies Court. It is a long, detailed and in many ways impressive report though unhappily, as we shall see,

A 'Magisterial' Judgment – the Highest Praise for Mr Justice Mostyn: a Comment by Sir James Munby

A 'Magisterial' Judgment – the Highest Praise for Mr Justice Mostyn: a Comment by Sir James Munby

In Mr Justice Mostyn – An Appreciation on His Forthcoming Retirement [2023] FRJ 77 I referred more than once to his important decision in Hasan v Ul-Hasan, decd and another [2021] EWHC 1791 (Fam), [2022] Fam 1, [2022] 1 FLR 1033. I said that he had followed the proper approach, playing

Mr Justice Mostyn – An Appreciation on His Forthcoming Retirement

Mr Justice Mostyn – An Appreciation on His Forthcoming Retirement

Cruel fate has cut short the judicial career of one of the greatest family lawyers of our times. He explains why in his article, ‘Sir Nicholas Mostyn shares his experience of living with Parkinson’s’ [2023] IFL 67. In the form of a revelatory interview (see p 89 below) with