Slip Rule

The slip rule is the court's power to correct an accidental slip or omission in a judgment or order. Under the Family Procedure Rules 2010 (Rule 29.16) and the Civil Procedure Rules (Rule 40.12), the court may at any time correct a clerical mistake or an error arising from an accidental slip or omission. A party may apply for a correction without notice. The correction must not change the substance of what the court decided — it can only put right an obvious error where the written order does not match what the court actually meant to order (for example, a misspelled name, a wrong date, an incorrect figure, or a missing word). It cannot be used to rethink the outcome, add a term the court never considered, or fix a deliberate choice; the remedy for that is an appeal or a variation application.