Tuesday 25 August 2009

Text messages as evidence in French divorce

I'm watching 'Caribbean Food Made Easy' on catch up television and just reminiscing about good times/childhood in the Caribbean. Jerk up that chicken Mr Roots!

I also am reading yesterday evening's Evening Standard (which I was too tired to read on the train last night) and came across a very interesting little snippet on page 20. The article was entitled, ' Le text d'amour...messages of love that prove adultery'. It follows a ruling by the Supreme Court that text messages can now be used as evidence in a divorce in France. The article went on to say that the ruling would mean that it is easier for people to get a divorce as French people often had to wait for extended periods of time if they could not prove that their spouses were mistreating them. I don't profess to know anything about French law but this ruling sounds like it will be both a positive and both a negative. Negative in the sense that drunken, incoherent texts often float around and if the basis for a divorce is on these messages, then we all need to be on our best behaviour and not drink and text (as many of us, not mentioning any names, have done after a 'good' night out).

The article also stated that emails are also accepted as evidence in trials. It really didn't clarify whether this was just in France but if anyone who practices Family Law knows whether texts and emails are accepted as evidence in England and Wales, I'd love to hear about it.

Interestingly enough, the article ended with the following,

"The decision overturned a 2007 ruling by a Lyon court, which had declared that using phone exchanges in court was a breach of privacy."

As if airing your marital laundry in court wasn't breach of your ex partner's privacy enough. (sorry if that made NO grammatical sense whatsoever)

Obviously, I haven't been married (yet?) so will never really be able to fully understand what divorce must be like. Heck, I've never even been in love...and I digress...

Night all!

CBC

xx

3 comments:

Unknown said...

In my experience, we lawyers are a damn sight more considerate about marital laundry than the gossippy (?sp) friends down the road! Staying in the area is far harder than the short period of grief in court...

The Curious Black Cat said...

Hmm, I hadn't quite considered the nosey outsiders...

The Curious Black Cat said...

...and thanks for your comment. Haven't seen you around these parts before. Welcome to the blog! I take it from your comment that you are a lawyer?