Family

Ministers have published secondary legislation widening access to legal aid for victims of domestic abuse.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has announced changes to the legal aid system that will enable domestic abuse victims to obtain free legal advice through new Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Domestic Abuse Protection Orders under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (DAA 2021). 

On 13 October 2022, JUSTICE published its report on improving access to justice for separating families. 

Caroline Bowden offers tools & insight to help family law professionals speak with children

The Family Court Transparency Implementation Group (TIG) established by the President of the Family Division to bring about the changes proposed in his review of Transparency in the Family Court has published its first progress report.

A ‘one lawyer, two clients’ model for family law cases has been launched by family law organisation, Resolution, with the backing of the president of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane.

Juliet Harvey, national chair of family law organisation Resolution, gave an address at the Family Practice Conference in Nottingham on 7 October 2022 in which she highlighted the 'desperate state' of the family courts, which she described as 'underfunded and understaffed' with increasing delays and backlogs and statistics that show that the average period from the date of a divorce/dissolution petition/application to decree absolute/final order is now 56 weeks, up seven weeks from the same time last year. 

"It is both a toolkit and a very good reference guide for practitioners faced with cases which have the unfortunate element of parental alienation"

On 28 September 2022, the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, gave the John Cornwell Lecture 2022 to the Family Mediation Association Conference (FMAC). 

In the second in a series of articles in NLJ on child abductions, Mani Singh Basi looks at cases where children go on holiday and are not returned home.