ROYAL COURT OF JERSEY
FD 20/01
Production and content
of
bundles for use in
the Family
Court (Registrars)
1.
It shall be the responsibility of the designated party, who is, unless otherwise agreed by the
parties or ordered by the court, the party in the position of applicant at the hearing, or if there
are
cross applications, the party whose application was first in time, not less than five
clear working days before any family case is to be heard, to lodge with the Family Proceedings' Officers
at the Judicial Greffe
an agreed paginated indexed bundle (the
“Court Bundle”). The
Court Bundle for the presiding Registrar should be clearly marked with the name, case number
and date of hearing and labelled "Court Bundle" and should contain such of the following documents as
ordered by the court:-
1.1 an up to date
case
summary of the background
to the hearing confined to those matters
which are relevant to
the hearing and the management of the
case
and limited, if practicable,
to four A4 pages;
1.2 a statement of the issue
or issues to be determined at that hearing,
agreed if possible;
1.3 a
position
statement by each
party setting out a
summary of the
order or directions sought by that party at that hearing;
1.4 an
up to date chronology of relevant events;
1.5 skeleton arguments,
if appropriate;
1.6 a
list of essential reading for that hearing;
1.7 acts of court in
date order;
1.8 applications in
date order;
1.9 statements
and affidavits in date order;
1.10 experts' and other reports;
1.11 such other documents as are necessary to
dispose of the cause
or application.
2.
A second
agreed paginated bundle for the use of
any witnesses to be called to
give evidence
shall
also
be provided to the Family Proceedings' Officers in advance of
the hearing, clearly marked with
the name, case number and date of hearing and labelled "Witness Bundle". This should contain only
those documents which witnesses
will
be asked to consider in
the course of their evidence.
3.
Unless prior permission has been sought and granted by the court, being satisfied that such direction is necessary and proportionate to the issues in dispute, the Court Bundle shall consist of no more than one
A4 size lever arch file or ring binder, limited to 350 sheets of A4 paper and shall consist of only those
documents which are relevant to the hearing and
which it is necessary for
the
court to read,
or to which reference will be made, during the hearing. If reference needs to be to voluminous documentation
e.g.
bank statements, separate paginated bundles of any such documents in strict date order shall be provided
for
the use of the court (and,
as necessary, witnesses)
at the hearing; these do not need to
be filed
in advance of the hearing.
4. Copies of all authorities relied upon
shall be contained in a
separate composite
bundle, agreed by the
advocates or parties, clearly marked with the name, case number and date of hearing and labelled
"Authorities Bundle", to be lodged not less than three clear working days before the commencement
of the hearing. Where expedient (i.e. where the Court Bundle is slim enough to accommodate core documents and authorities), the Court and Authorities bundle may be combined but shall be prepared
and filed as the Court Bundle.
5. Unless requested
otherwise,
the party in the position of applicant at the hearing shall lodge with the Judicial Greffe (to: JGRCourtDocuments@gov.je ) an electronic copy of the Court Bundle and a copy of the Authorities Bundle.1 Each bundle shall be
filed
as a set of Acrobat .pdf files corresponding to the documents listed in the index and named to match as closely as possible the index entries
taking into account the
limitations on
characters available in
naming files.
6. The party in the position of
applicant at the
hearing shall serve upon each of the other parties to
the action (via their respective advocate if so represented) one copy
of the Court Bundle and the Authorities Bundle.
7. Any bundles lodged may use double sided printing to avoid unnecessary waste or costs being
incurred.
1 Reference should be paid pro tem to the Bailiff’s
directions as to how bundles should be filed while
social distancing restrictions
remain in
place.
8. Any document created by any party for litigation shall use a type and size of font that is clearly legible to the Court. Wherever possible, copies of
any other documents or cases should
also
be produced in a format that is clearly legible for the Court. All documents (e.g. photographs or plans) originally produced
in colour,
should be copied
in colour
for the Court Bundle.
9. It shall be the duty of the designated party to consult with all other parties in sufficient time to ensure compliance with
this practice direction.
10. It shall be the duty of any other party to the application to co-operate fully with the designated party
to produce the Court Bundle
and Authorities Bundle.
11. The provisions of paragraphs (1) to (10) above shall not apply to any application which is, of necessity, to be heard at short notice. In relation to such matters, it shall be the responsibility of each party to lodge such documents as might reasonably be required by the Court, or relied upon by the parties, in an appropriate form having regard to the requirements in this practice direction in such manner
as to enable the hearing to proceed as
expeditiously as possible.
12. All bundles of documents which shall be lodged pursuant to these directions shall have an index
and shall be paginated in
accordance with the Guidelines annexed hereto.
13. All references to authorities in any index produced pursuant to these directions shall be made in the form
set out in the Guidelines annexed hereto and shall be separated using
individual
tabs or dividers. Each category of authority shall be listed in date order starting with the earliest in time. Authorities not referred to in a skeleton argument should not be inserted in a bundle without justification.
14. It shall be the responsibility of each party to keep the Family Proceedings' Officer fully informed at all times
as to which cases are likely to settle
and which cases are likely to
proceed to a hearing.
15. It is the intention of the Court to enforce the requirements of this Practice Direction and, in appropriate cases, to award costs against a defaulting party or personally
against the lawyer representing that party
who
fails to adhere
to this Practice Direction without reasonable
excuse. Any non- compliance
may also lead to restrictions on how long a party may address the Court or to adjournments.
16. This Practice Direction applies to all applications or causes proceeding before the Registrars which have
a time estimate of
more than one hour.
17. This
Practice Direction shall come into force with immediate effect.
24th June 2020
GUIDELINES
FOR
THE PRODUCTION OF THE COURT BUNDLE
GENERAL POINTS
1.
The Court Bundle in a family action should comprise one copy, and one copy only, of all relevant Acts
of Court and pleadings, arranged in a logical sequence.
2.
Each section of the bundle should be separated by numbered tabs and each page in each
section should be individually paginated.
3.
Amended pleadings filed by consent
or with leave only should be inserted in the pleadings bundle. Proper practice is to identify amendments made to a pleading by underscoring additional material in red and drawing a line through words to be deleted. Where a pleading has
been amended extensively or there have been multiple amendments a
clean version of the latest pleading should
also be inserted.
4.
Affidavits should be identified in the index and clearly separated using individual tabs or
dividers. Exhibits to any affidavit should also be identified in the index and separated using individual tabs or dividers.
5.
Any documents in the Court Bundle which are not already paginated or which are not already adequately numbered should be paginated so that each section of the bundle is paginated sequentially. It is not necessary to paginate the entire Court Bundle consecutively or to paginate those sections of the Court Bundle where the contents of that section already contain page numbers or which are adequately numbered.
6.
A full copy of each authority relied upon should be included in the aAuthorities bBundle unless the authority is voluminous in which case the head note and the whole of any section dealing with the point in
issue
must
be included.
7.
Correspondence included should only be correspondence relevant to an issue before the Court requiring adjudication
and which correspondence the
Court needs to consider.
FORM OF INDEX OF AUTHORITIES
(List cases
for
each category in date order)
(1)
Jersey reported Judgments:
Le Couteur
-v- Romeril (1980)
JJ.
408.
Ribeiro -v- Brown
(1985-86) JLR 464 or
N. 6.
(2)
Jersey unreported Judgments:
The references should
include the date, but no serial/file number:
Neveu
-v- Jones [2004] JRC 103.
(3)
English
authorities:
Smith -v- Jones
(1980) 1 FLR 560.
(4)
Reference to
Texts:
As a broad principle, the reference should start with:
a) the author’s name; followed by
b) the title of
the work;
c) the
edition;
d) the
page of reference