Divorce
(asked on 9th July 2018) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of divorces which have been refused in each of the last five years.
A decree nisi is the provisional decree of divorce pronounced when the court is satisfied that a person has met the legal and procedural requirements to obtain a divorce. The number and proportion of divorce petitions in which the court declined to grant a decree nisi in each of the last five years are as follows:
Year | Divorce petitions issued | Decree nisi not granted | Proportion of all petitions |
2013 | 97,044 | 20,462 | 17% |
2014 | 94,842 | 17,759 | 16% |
2015 | 97,782 | 16,789 | 15% |
2016 | 98,335 | 15,791 | 14% |
2017 | 93,934 | 15,414 | 14% |
The court may decline to grant a decree nisi because there is insufficient evidence that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. Further evidence may then be submitted to the court and the court may decide to grant the decree. Information on how many rejected decrees nisi are granted subsequently could only be obtained from an analysis of court files at disproportionate cost.