overloaded justice plus court date available for divorce
In Toulouse, the average time to obtain a divorce hearing is two years. A congestion of the jurisdictions which weighs on the families.
Yahia missed all of her “daughter’s firsts”. This Toulouse father did not see him walk, he did not see him speak, neither in real life nor on video. In conflict with his wife, from whom he is in the process of divorcing, he has been waiting for months to obtain an audience. Toulouse justice is indeed congested and the family court overloaded.
On average in Toulouse, it takes two years to get an audience. Against 18 months in the rest of France. “I am constantly bombarded with phone calls from my clients who do not understand why their divorce case is not progressing,” laments Me Assia Derbali, lawyer at the Toulouse bar.
“Undersized Justice”
The Toulouse court has six judges for family affairs, where there should be twice as many, according to local professionals. Last June, Toulouse lawyers were launched a petition to point out “the unprecedented degradation of the functioning of family justice in Toulouse”. They regret that “the main victim of this abandonment of justice is the litigant”.
“We have undersized justice, not enough staff to dispense justice in proportion to the demography which is ours, we are in averages totally inequitable with the reality on the ground”, estimates Me Pierre Dunac, lawyer of the President of the Bar. From toulouse.
The law which reformed divorce by mutual consent in 2016 to allow this procedure to be diverted, that is to say that it no longer needs to be validated by a judge, has not made it possible to unclog courts. And this even though, a study by the Superior Council of Notaries affirms that notaries recorded 71,000 amicable divorces in 2021, against 51,000 in 2019.