The FSG, a subgroup of the Private Law Working Group, was set up this year to look for ways to improve the experiences and opportunities of separating families away from the Family Court.
Its report, ‘What about me?’, published this week, observes that the current processes for resolving issues between separating parents tend to operate largely for parents. It calls for the establishment of community-based services to inform, support and represent the children of separating couples.
It recommends there be a presumption that all children aged 10 or above be heard in an issue-resolution process outside of the courtroom. It also notes that a legal response to parental disagreements may not always be necessary, as they are often not legal disputes.
Another of the its recommendations is for a public education campaign, to reframe family breakdown away from ‘justice’ language and towards an understanding of child welfare, promoting the rights of children to a relationship with both parents, where there are no safety concerns.
While it will take time to shift societal attitudes, it points out that the introduction of no-fault divorce next year ‘represents a perfect opportunity to begin this shift’.
It highlights the crisis facing the family justice system, noting: ‘The numbers of parents making applications is unmanageable and family courts are stretched beyond limits, with the numbers of applications (often about matters that should never have reached the doors of the court) growing exponentially.
‘The system is recognised as broken and in need of radical reform.’
Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division, said: ‘It should be a matter of concern for society in general to achieve better co-parenting between separating couples.
‘It is thought that about 40% of all separating parents bring issues about their children’s care to the Family Court for determination, rather than exercising parental responsibility and sorting problems out themselves. This figure is both startling and worrying.
‘Where there are no issues of domestic abuse or child protection, parents ought to be able, or encouraged, to make arrangements for their own child, rather than come to a court of law and a judge to resolve the issues.
‘The number of these private law applications continues to increase, and the trend is that more and more parents see lawyers and the court as the first port of call in dispute resolution, rather than as the facility of last resort as it should be in all cases where domestic abuse or child protection are not an issue.’
View the report at: bit.ly/3eUp3ka.
