Introduction

This chapter deals with the orders, other than the order for dissolution (see chapter 10) the court can make to bring a civil partnership to an end or to provide for the separation of the parties. The orders that the court can make in civil partnership are very similar to those made by the court on the breakdown of a marriage, and divorce practitioners will readily recognise the language and concepts discussed below.

Nullity

The Act preserves in relation to civil partnerships the distinction which is made in marriage between unions that are void and those which are voidable. A void marriage is said to be ‘one that will be regarded by every court in any case in which the existence of the marriage is in issue as never having taken place and can be so treated by both parties to it without the necessity of any decree annulling it; a voidable marriage is one that will be regarded by every court as a valid subsisting marriage until a decree annulling it has been pronounced by a court of competent jurisdiction’ (per Lord Greene in De Reneville v. De Reneville [1948] 1 All ER 56 at 60, CA).