The Magistrates' Courts (Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Rules 1993

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Rules)

The Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1992 amends the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act 1920 and the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972. Those amendments were necessary to enable the new forms of procedure in magistrates' courts in England and Wales introduced by the Children Act 1989 to be used for the reciprocal enforcement of maintenance orders and claims for maintenance.

In consequence of the 1992 Act, these Rules amend the various instruments governing the procedure to be followed under each of those Acts. Those instruments are listed in rule 2.

The amendments to the main part of each instrument are made by Schedule 1. These include a new rule 7A in the Magistrates' Courts (Recovery Abroad of Maintenance) Rules 1975, requiring the clerk to the justices to notify payers of maintenance of the method by which they should pay.

Rule 3 adds to each of the instruments, as an appropriately numbered schedule, the common set of rules contained in Schedule 2. By virtue of the amendments made to each instrument, the schedule thus added applies to various proceedings governed by the instrument in question.

The rules in Schedule 2, among other things, govern the service of documents (paragraph 3); provide for directions (paragraph 4); require documents to be filed in a prescribed manner (paragraph 7); and make provision for the procedure to be followed at hearings (paragraph 10).

In order for Schedule 2 to be effective wherever it applies, paragraphs 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 refer to “the resident party” and “the non-resident party”. These terms are defined, according to the proceedings in question, by the amendments in Schedule 1.