marriage mental-health uk-supreme-court
What is the father of the bride test?
<p>I have been watching a Supreme Court hearing, and there are certain things that I don't understand. I have also not been able to find what these things mean on the internet.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court hearing is: <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/watch/uksc-2020-0133/150621-am.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.supremecourt.uk/watch/uksc-2020-0133/150621-am.html</a></p>
<p>What is meant by &quot;the father and the bride test&quot;? (approx 33min in)</p>

<p>This is an appeal from the decision in <em>A Local Authority v JB</em> <a href="https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2020/735.html" rel="noreferrer">[2020] EWCA Civ 735</a>. In the part of the hearing to which you refer, Lord Stephens is asking the appellant’s counsel about the following principle, quoted at [31] of the judgment under appeal:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When considering capacity to marry, the question is whether X has capacity to marry, not whether she has capacity to marry Y rather than Z. The question of capacity to marry has never been considered by reference to a person's ability to understand or evaluate the characteristics of some particular spouse or intended spouse: <em>Re E (and Alleged Patient); Sheffield City Council v E and S</em> <a href="https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2004/2808.html" rel="noreferrer">[2004] EWHC 2808 (Fam)</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In <em>Re E</em>, Munby J said at [91]:</p>
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<p>The point is suggested by Miss Waddicor's very pertinent rhetorical question: Can it seriously be suggested that the court has the right to vet E's suitors, to decide that X is suitable but that Y is unsuitable, to select who E is to marry? The answer to that question, in my judgment, is that the court quite clearly has no such role.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ‘father of the bride test’ is the proposition rejected here: that the Court of Protection could play the traditional role of the father of the bride, by granting permission to marry a particular person, rather than determining the person’s capacity to marry in a more general sense.</p>
