ANONYMOUS from Kempton Park West writes:
I would like to thank as well as congratulate a clerk and magistrate who efficiently handled my divorce case from my now ex-husband.
Anyone who has ever been through a divorce would know that, from start to finish, it takes a lot of time and energy. Well, I would just like to let everyone know how quickly mine was and that the whole process took my ex-husband and I five days.
I felt that due to the public having such a negative perception of our legal system, I needed to let people know about a positive, friendly court clerk I was fortunate enough to deal with.
My husband and I decided that the time had come for us to go our separate ways, and approached the clerk at Kempton Magistrate’s Court on Monday, March 3.
She gave us the relevant forms to complete as well as a paper listing of what we would need and explained to us what steps had to be taken with regards to the divorce procedure.
We gathered all appropriate documents, completed the forms and returned them to her on the same day.
She checked all our documents and gave us a case number we needed to hand over to the sheriff, who also helped us on the same day. By the end of that Monday, she had set up an appointment for our court date, which would be that Friday, March 7.
On the Friday morning, we went to court. The magistrate overseeing our case was satisfied that the forms and all the attachments were in order. He then granted our divorce.
He also commented on how quickly it took us to get divorced because it was unusual for divorce procedures to take such a short time.
He also asked the clerk to get our decree ready on the same day and by 1pm we were divorced, decree in hand.
Never in my life have I received such a high standard of service from a government institution or employees and I feel that other magistrate’s courts could definitely learn from these two outstanding staff members (the clerk and the magistrate).
If all courts operated as efficiently, we wouldn’t have all these backlogs,and waiting periods would definitely be shortened.
