#headdesk
Just received new guidance on use of email to communicate with HMCTS. No doubt this is not unconnected to the recent announcements about selling off all court buildings and holding court in a pop up tent under the escalators in the nearest shopping mall to the child’s place of residence. Virtual = virtuous.
First reaction (as I start to read the bit on exemptions to the requirement to use secure email) : yay, this seems to be a loosening up of the previously unworkable rules which required the use of secure email by all senders and recipients, thereby excluding LiPs from being able to use emails.
Second reaction (as I get past the first sentence) : oh, give me strength…
This is what it says :
All Civil and Family process, applications and documents will be accepted by email as long as when the entire email is printed out it is not more than 50 pages. This should include the email, all attachments (including any documents embedded in another) and enough copies to serve on required parties (excluding Local Authorities, CAFCASS and CAFCASS CYMRU for Family cases only).
Let’s just stop and think about this shall we?
A C100, used to commence most proceedings relating to children, runs to 24 pages, excluding the response pack, the C1A, any rider sheets… Any email these days has a mandatory 2 pages of tail end including disclaimers and the like.
Now I stopped doing money work when I realised numbers were not my forte, but even I can see that two times 26 is more than 50 pages (one for the court, one for the other party). Obviously the problem is greater where there are more parties (Although service on the LA / CAFCASS doesn’t count).
Other common applications and documents include non-mol applications (10 pages plus statement in support), part 25 application (C2 form 8 pages, plus CV say 5 pages, pro forma re expert willingness and availability 2 pages, letter of instruction say 5 pages, draft order say 6 pages = 26 pages (more if more than one cv provided)).
So, we can see that in this instance “all” is roughly equivalent to “a very very few”. I am guessing that the civil servant who devised the C100 form and the civil servant who devised this new more flexible policy sit at opposite ends of a very big, grey office somewhere in Petit France. They should make time to discuss this over coffee sometime…or better still, skype each other so they don’t have to meet in real life.
Oh yes, here is the document, which I received by email so I can’t give you a link to it.
🙂
But when you’ve got a CMO drafted so as to require the person drafting it to repeat everything that is already in the heading, even though that’s what headings are for, which uses the passive voice as though we are still in Jarndyce v J, and we are asked for the parties’ positions in both the CMO and the CS: what hope could there ever be?
Btw on CMOs, before the finalised doc goes to court, we take off everything at the bottom that is below the judge’s name
Oh I do that too with CMOs – but I do wonder how any normal person is meant to interpret codes like placement type 05 without the key… not very accessible.
As you type in the codes, you have to sing “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do” like HAL in 2001
Splitting hairs perhaps, but if you assume that they will naturally print double sided (to simultaneously save the rainforest), could this not extend to 100 sides on 50 pages?
oh no – they have thought of that! “Please note that: 1. A page is one side, so 50 pages equals 25 pieces of paper printed on both sides…”