The Family Court and Federal Circuit Court are piloting a system in Brisbane that enables couples to divorce without stepping into a court registry. Federal Circuit Court executive director of operations Steve Agnew said the e-divorce system would be rolled out nationally and would allow individuals to access their court file from any location, removing the need to queue at a registry.
“The benefits of doing this online is that they will have access to their court file, they will be able to see all of their documents online and, at any future point in time, if they need a copy of their divorce order they will be able to get one free of charge by going online,” he said.
He said at the moment, if people misplaced their divorce order, they had to write to the court requesting a copy and were required to pay a fee.
Mr Agnew said the change would most benefit those who had to travel long distances to access court registries.
“It’s particularly beneficial for people who live in regional and rural areas and people who live in the outer suburbs — they don’t have to come in to the registry, they don’t have to post their applications in, they can do it all online,” he said.
However, the legislation still requires couples with children younger than 18 to go to court to finalise their divorce. People must also have been separated for at least 12 months to satisfy the court that their marriage had broken down irretrievably.
Mr Agnew said couples could already file an application for a divorce online but only about 17 per cent of couples did so.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 46,498 couples divorced in 2014, a decline of 2.4 per cent from the previous year.
Of those, 53 per cent did not have children.
THE AUSTRALIAN
Nicola Berkovic
Legal affairs correspondent
Sydney
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