More than 40% of marriages in Cayman end in divorce, according to statistics quoted by Chief Justice Margaret Ramsay-Hale last week.
Speaking at the opening of the Grand Court on Wednesday, 10 Jan., Ramsay-Hale said, somewhat tongue in cheek, that her colleague Justice Richard Williams in the Family Division court had informed her that the prospect for marriage in the Cayman Islands “remains grim”.
Last year, 286 certificates of dissolution of marriage were granted in Family Court, up from 251 in 2022.
Ramsay-Hale said she had checked marriage statistics on island on an online aggregation site, which had informed her that marriages “seem to be remaining steady at 670 marriages per annum”. The site had also noted that Cayman had the fifth highest divorce rate in the world, with Russia being number one, and the US sixth.
The worldatlas.com website states that Cayman’s divorce rate stands at 3.40 per 1,000 people.
Acknowledging that the divorce rate was “not quite half” of the marriage rate, she indicated the rising number of cases was evident in the Family Division court, where 355 new cases were filed in 2023.
She said a number of cases remained before the court, driven in large part by “an unusual number of contested hearings of unusual length”.
While she, and Justices Cheryll Richards and Marlene Carter, assist in the Family Division court, Williams is the only permanent member of that court. As the case load increases, she said, it may soon be time to consider the capacity of the family court.
“The number of matters remaining before the court awaiting resolution is concerning,” she said, “not only because it is the mission of the Family Division to help people in ending their marriage in a most efficient and fair way passible, but also because we would like to do so with the least amount of conflict.
“No divorce should be a Pyrrhic victory from which both parties leave hopelessly scathed by the process. The court deplores a scorched earth approach to family litigation that sees the largest part of the marital estate eaten up by legal fees.”
She added, “If it isn’t for the sake of the parents, it should at least be for the sake of the children, who are the ones who suffer the emotional fallout from a hostile and hard-fought divorce.”
The Family Division uses mediation to deal with many of the acrimonious divorces, in an effort to cut down on legal fees and find a solution that suits all the parties involved.
The chief justice said such an approach had been successful in the Family Division, “and it shows a way forward for us in the Civil Court”.
She paid tribute to the “exceptional record” of mediation coordinator Leslie Talbot, who had led mediation in the family court for the past four years, and who will be retiring this year. She will be replaced by Chanda Glidden.
Last year, mediation settled 104 cases, and only 11 remain partially settled, Ramsay-Hale noted, adding that the outstanding cases are expected to be settled by the end of the first quarter.
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