ABSTRACT
Domestic violence Part IV is the least controversial part of the Act. It simply codifies and improves the existing law of domestic violence for which practitioners have been hopefully, but not very patiently, waiting for some time. It makes some logical and clarifying changes.All the various orders which can be granted under the existing law are now called respectively Occupation or Non-molestation orders, depending on whether they are exclusion or merely personal protection orders, and they can now protect a wider class of persons than before.These persons are now all called ‘associated persons’, are defined in s 62(3) and include relatives and persons who have lived together in the same household otherwise than on a merely commercial basis as well as existing and former spouses, fiancé(e)s and cohabitees (who are incidentally now called in the Act ‘cohabitants’). Rights of occupation of the home are now called ‘Matrimonial Home Rights’ and these rights are extended to spouses not entitled to occupy a home but who are in occupation, and also give, with leave of the court, rights to those who are neither entitled to occupy nor in occupation. As a result there are consequential amendments to conveyancing procedures and the registration of charges.
