Dis­clo­sure: When Is Enough Enough?

Dis­clo­sure, the fam­i­ly law equiv­a­lent of dis­cov­ery in oth­er kinds of civ­il pro­ceed­ings, is a foun­da­tion­al part of fam­i­ly law matters. 

The Fed­er­al Cir­cuit and Fam­i­ly Court of Aus­tralia (Fam­i­ly Law) Rules 2021 (Cth) (“the Rules”) and the var­i­ous pre­de­ces­sors of those Rules have long includ­ed a require­ment that:

… each par­ty to a pro­ceed­ing has a duty to the court and to each oth­er par­ty to give full and frank dis­clo­sure of all infor­ma­tion rel­e­vant to the pro­ceed­ing, in a time­ly manner. 

That duty is applic­a­ble in both par­ent­ing and prop­er­ty pro­ceed­ings, and con­tin­ues through­out the entire­ty of a mat­ter (see Rules 6.02, 6.05, and 6.06). It requires that any and all infor­ma­tion that is rel­e­vant to a fact in issue in a mat­ter needs to be disclosed.