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Earlier this week, the UK’s most senior family law judge, Sir Nicholas Wall, advocated the benefits of no-fault divorce and called for the government to reform laws which ‘represent the values of a bygone age’.

Responses to Wall’s comments have been, as you would expect, mixed: the right arguing that no-fault divorce would make it too easy for couples to end their marriages, the left claiming that it should no longer be necessary for dissatisfied spouses to prove that their partner was at fault in order to obtain a divorce. Quickie Divorce, as the title of this article suggests, agree with the latter.

Any argument that the introduction of no-fault divorce will result in a surge in the number of individuals filing for a divorce is misplaced. Anyone that has been swayed by this argument needs to consider just how often spouses decide to end their marriages on little more than a whim. Ask any spouse that has decided to leave their partner about their decision and they will, on nearly every occasion, inform you of the indecision they fought with, the hopes of reconciliation that they toyed with and the pain that their decision has caused not just their husband or wife, but themselves too.

The decision to end a marriage is, in itself, arduous and saddening. So much so, that it is not unreasonable to argue that the process of making this decision is far more likely to deter an unhappy spouse from divorce than the legal process itself.

It is rare if not unheard of for an individual that has decided to divorce their spouse to initiate a reconciliation following them having discovered that they will need to blame their spouse for the end of their marriage. If their spouse has done nothing wrong and they’re unable to file for divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour or adultery, they’ll simply wait two or five years before they apply. Fault divorces do little more than delay the inevitable and, in many instances, lead spouses to make false claims about their partners, turning otherwise amicable divorces into acrimonious ones in the process.

Sir Nicholas Wall has been quoted as saying that he can see no credible arguments against the introduction of no-fault divorce, and Quickie Divorce agrees wholeheartedly.