It is 10 years this week since the Irish people voted, by the narrowest possible margin, to remove the constitutional prohibition on divorce. Since then divorce has become a reality in the social and legal landscape in modern Ireland. The last census showed over 35,000 divorced people living in the State.
The deluge of divorce predicted by those who opposed the change in the Constitution has not materialised. After a slow start following the enactment of the enabling legislation in 1996, there were 3,378 applications by the year 2000. That has increased slightly every year since, with 3,914 last year. Over the same period the number of marriages has also risen slightly, from 19,168 in 2000 to 20,619 last year. While it can be misleading to compare today's marriages with the dissolution of marriages that took place many years ago, nonetheless, the statistics give the lie to suggestions that the availability of divorce would lead to the wholesale destruction of Irish marriages.
Apart from these bare statistics, however, we know very little of what has been happening in our divorce courts. Because of the in camera rule relating to family law, it has been illegal, not only for journalists, but for researchers, to attend court hearings and publicise decisions, even without identifying the parties. Even the parties themselves cannot publicly discuss their own experiences. Yet, behind the closed doors of the courts, the fabric of Irish society has been changing. Farms and businesses are being divided, homes are being sold, resources are being transferred from one spouse to another, children are subject to custody orders. The traditional family is being reordered. Carol Coulter, Our Legal Affairs Correspondent, attempts to reflect these changes in a report in today's edition.
Some information about how the courts are interpreting our new divorce laws does come into the public domain through the publication of High and Supreme Court written decisions. But these only account for a small minority of the whole (40 cases were decided by the High Court last year, with over 3,000 decided in the Circuit Court) and they are atypical, as they deal almost entirely with cases involving a great deal of money. Most divorces involve people whose main asset is the family home, along perhaps, with an occupational pension.
Thus, one of the most socially significant changes in Ireland is going unscrutinised. Problems and inequities cannot be identified. Justice cannot be seen to be done.
The Minister for Justice has modified the in camera rule in the recently enacted Civil Liability and Courts Act, and "bona-fide researchers" can now attend family courts in order to conduct research and prepare reports. He set his face firmly against allowing the media report family law cases, even under stringent restrictions that would protect the identity of the parties and their children. It remains to be seen how such research and reports will enter the public domain and bring light to this dark corner of the law.