Judicial Hearings of Undefended Divorce Petitions*

Safeguarding Children's Welfare in Non‐Contentious Divorce: Towards a New Conception of the Legal Process?

“…Later research by Elston et al 16 into judicial hearings of undefended divorces confirmed Hall's findings, and found that, of the 470 relevant cases observed, the judge withheld the satisfaction certificate in 2.8 per cent (21 cases), and sought a welfare report in 1.6 per cent (12 cases). The majority of petitioners interviewed considered that it would be very helpful if there were a special person attached to the court to whom they could turn for advice, and that the importance of their children's welfare should be reflected by some form of home visits to check on their circumstances and interview the children.…”

THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF DIVORCE PROCEDURES: The Danish Administrative and the West German Family Court Solution

“…These authors are concerned with ritual behaviour as occasioned by passing from one social status or role to another, or from one relationship to another (e.g. The broad attack against the adversative procedure in the contemporary reformatory discussion on procedural family law typically implied a shift of perspective towards the divorce clients' needs, especially their needs for advice and assistance as far as their future development is concerned (see for instance FOSTER, 1966;ISAAC, 1967;COULSON, 1969;FOLBERG, 1974;ELSTON et al 1975;GLENDON, 1977;MNOOKIN and KORNHAUSER, 1979;MURCH, 1980). Each time the stage before transition and the stage after transition are socially (and/or legally) defined and the extraordinary nature of the transition is ceremonially underlined.…”