The High Court has set a 30-day period for compliance with an order arising from an earlier family-law judgment and made no order as to costs in the proceedings between X and Y.
In a further judgment delivered on 13 June 2023, Mr Justice Max Barrett said Ms Y had succeeded in the application addressed in the previous judgment, while Mr X had not. He nonetheless applied the usual approach in family-law proceedings that each party bears their own costs. He said there was nothing in Mr X’s conduct or arguments that justified departing from that approach.
The court said it would issue an order in the form described in paragraphs 16 and 17 of the previous judgment, with two amendments. First, the compliance period would be 30 days rather than the 14 days proposed by Ms Y’s counsel. The judge considered 14 days too short.
Second, the court said it would not require Mr X to provide a comprehensive list of material he had furnished to the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal, if Ms Y had been copied on everything sent to the tribunal. The judge noted that this point came from Mr X’s submissions, not evidence. If it presented a problem, the parties—particularly Ms Y—could make a brief further application before the order was made.
The judgment said Mr X would need to make a separate application, on notice, for leave to release documents protected by the in-camera rule. He would have to identify the documents and explain why he sought their release; Ms Y and her lawyers could oppose the application. The judge said the order would not require Mr X to disclose the substance of documents he had provided to a solicitor consulted about making reports.
The judge also clarified that an earlier statement that he assumed Mr X had acted in good faith was not a finding that he had done so. He rejected Mr X’s request for reciprocal disclosure orders against Ms Y, saying that relief had not been sought in the application that led to the previous judgment. He also declined to make a report about a solicitor, saying the judge who heard the earlier application had not considered a report necessary and he was not in a position to reach a contrary conclusion.
The judgment does not state the proceedings’ record number and says it is not to be disclosed. It directs Ms Y’s counsel to draft the order and provide it to the registrar, copying Mr X. If Mr X objects to any part of the draft, he may raise the objection before the judge after giving Ms Y prior notice.