Giving the keynote address at the Four Jurisdictions Family Law Conference this week, Mr Justice McDonald made some predictions for legal issues in the next 25 years.
He said
lawyers are ‘already seeing new categories of maltreatment emerge’, the most
recent example of which is the systematic exploitation of children by criminal
gangs. Future parental disputes could involve biomechanical modifications and
biotechnical interfaces for humankind.
‘Will screen
time become a welfare issue? We might also contemplate whether the emergence
and acceptance of entirely self-driving vehicles will see the end of disputes
as to who supervises the handover of children as between separated parents.’
Ultimately,
however, he predicted the ‘best interests of the child’ test, in the Children
Act 1989, would retain its value.
‘On their
face, disputes between parents as to whether to allow their child the addition
of a biotechnical interface to supplement the child’s memory capacity… appear
new and exotic to us. But the essential question remains the same. Namely,
which of the diverging choices advanced by the parents as a legitimate exercise
of their parental responsibility is in the child’s best interests, having
regard to the child’s wishes and feelings, characteristics, physical, emotional
and educational needs, any risk of harm, the capabilities of the parents and
the powers of the court.
‘The best
interests test and, in my jurisdiction, the welfare checklist constitute
supremely malleable tools, sufficiently flexible to last us long into the
future.’
