Welcome to the online consultation forum for the Law Commission's Tenth Programme of Law Reform.

Family Law

This discussion concerns the law as it relates to the family. Previous posts can be found in the archive thread. In summary, they discuss:

•Court Orders in relation to child contact and access
•Child contact; protection of children in domestic violence cases
•Child support and maintenance
•Application of the Children’s Act 1989; publishing orders, appeal of orders, “leave to remove”, interviewing children.
•The allocation of Child Benefit and its impact on future entitlements
•The rights granted to Civil Partnerships

Do you have a point relating to this area of law that you want to discuss? Feel free to comment below.

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Court Orders

Posted by the umpire on 20/03/2007 - 16:56

The binding of court orders, their meaning and the law in agreement to it when it is broken.

In recent years the District Judges in the Family Court have issued court orders for access and contact for non resident parents for the court orders to be ignored or even refused by the solicitors for the other side.

At present no action is taken against the RP or their legal representatives and this needs to be done with urgent requirement.

Court Orders must be adhere to and District Judges must give out fines and possible Jail sentence when they are refused or ignored.

Court Orders

Posted by 24601 on 21/03/2007 - 22:24

I agree. Is it possible to be in contempt of a Family Court? It seems that for most who breach an order: the most they'll get is a telling off - 10 minutes detention, almost.
Usually, it is the mother breaching the order adding to the father's despair. Family Law is so heavily stacked against father's that a breach compounds the misery for the father and lessens any time that the child may wish to spend with the Non-Resident Parent.

Court Orders

Posted by happydadtoo on 22/03/2007 - 06:05

I whole-heartedly agree.
This MUST be the only area of law where breaking a Court Order is completely disregarded and so anarchy reigns.
Fines (pay all of father's costs) or jailing of RP's who break the Order (even on a first offence) MUST become near-universal.
Transfer of children to teh other parent must ALWAYS follow - unless he/she is unable to cope.
That way, fairness will be restored - BUT the lawyers will lose a very lucrative sources of income - so I guess thsi will not happen,
In my case, £300,000 was spent trying to get a mother to obey repeated court Orders - all to no avail.
Ian

Legally defying a Court order for contact - simple

Posted by Clifton Moore on 30/03/2007 - 11:12

Breaking a contact court order without recourse is both simple and cruel. When the parent with care has so alienated/encouraged a child to say it does not wish to see the other parent what action is taken? Time out for a further CAFCASS or Legal Guardian report allows for more emotional abuse towards a childs entrechment. For things to have festered into the need for multiple trips to court the chemistry is in place for the alienation of the parent without care. The current legal process fails to address this issue at a point when it can be effectively prevented and is guilty of aiding the emotional abuse / distress of children in such a position. Legal Aid supports this.
The entire issue of Family Law must be re-addressed.

Family Law

Posted by dpr100 on 23/03/2007 - 17:37

I consider it would be prudent to open up the Family Division of the High Court to more scrutiny. At present it is truly the preserve of lawyers, anyone else, in my experience is not welcome. Whilst I do not deny that it is lawyers traditional territory,with the increasing cost of fees and the corresponding cut backs in Legal Aid, people are more likely to want to put the case themselves. This is most difficult to accomplish without having preveiously set foot inside of the Family Division. Consequently litigants in person are at times doubly disadvanataged: opposed by a professional lawyer and unaware of the court protocols. This is perculiar to the Family Division. There are of course good reasons for this, nevertheless, an opening up of the court's activities short of allowing unfettered reporting would allow the layman to witness what actually occurs. This would give the litigant in person and their McKensie friends' more confidence in such matters and I consider would in the long run ensure that better justice is done. At present many people cannot afford professional help, but they still have something to say. Nevertheless because they do not know, or find it difficult to find out how the court operates they are intimidated into either not attending a hearing or keeping silent at that hearing. Silence on a large scale perpetuates injusice. This can be easily be remedied by greater transparency and openness.

Residence and contact orders

Posted by cj04 on 26/03/2007 - 19:43

After filing for divorce from my now ex- husband, I offered unlimed and staying contact with our children.

Despite this fact, he was still able to use the law to take me to court and fight for contact (through and order) and shared residence (he wanted 50% of the equity in our property and the only way that he could get this was through residence). Up until now I still cannot see how this happened to us - I was treated in the courts as if I was a crimianl 'stopping contact' - it was horrific

meetings with Cafcass were fruitless - my or my childrens voices were not heard.

My husband abused me - this was not taken into consideration by either the judges or by cafcass - in fact I had to sit in the same room as the man who abused me.

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Family Law

Posted by doozy on 29/03/2007 - 11:50

•Court Orders in relation to child contact and access

Once a Court Order is made, that order should be upheld if breached, and sanctions should be actively used to address anyone found to be flouting order without good reason.

•Child contact; protection of children in domestic violence cases

Full risk assessment of cases reporting DV should be carried out as fast as possible but with adequate resources and full investigation into the nature, and relevance to any abuse with the matter before the court. False and malicious claims should be treated as a criminal act of perjury with effective sanctions to deter such claims. It is well recognized within the Family Courts that the majority of DV claims are unfounded, and are a product of the hostile litigation environment created in adversarial winner takes all Residence and Contact disputes.

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Family Court openness

Posted by rufus on 29/03/2007 - 16:07

The excuses given by the authorities to oppose openness are pathetic, and, hence, untenable. It is quite clear that the current situation is in place to protect the 'experts', social services and the judges etc. It deeply offends my sense of what is right and just that decisions that destroy families are done in secret. It is exactly as a very famous person stated: "men have loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were wicked. For he that practices vile things hates the light and does not come to the light, in order that his works may not be reproved".
Full and honest Family Courts openness now !

Family Law to recognise Emotional Abuse

Posted by Clifton Moore on 30/03/2007 - 06:50

Parents should be allowed to work things out between themselves but failing that there should be a mandatory immediate and effective structure of social services intervention with help and professional counselling for parents and children similar to that offered by The Centre for Separated Families..

The current legal process fails to protect our children and only serves to amplify 'bad feeling' between parents and is a bad use of public resources. Change could be self financed by the savings on Legal Aid and the existing legal process. It will create jobs losses in the field of 'Family Law' and job gains in Social Services.... it will undoubtedly benefit the children. The positive effect on the moral of an estranged parent would be rolled over into their productivity at work and their willingness to contribute (more) to their childrens welfare financially.... as a Nation we could see long term benefits to more than just the social structure of our society...

I beleive its not the Parent

Posted by jrps on 30/03/2007 - 09:11

I beleive its not the Parent with care thats at fault all the time, but the information given to people by their legal representatives.
If the courts were to make both sides have more aggrements before it gets to the court stage, and not allow solicitors to push the system all the way, then alot more would get resolved.