Family Justice

: When the Division was called, I was about to turn to one of the most difficult issues that we considered—safety and domestic violence. Groups representing victims of abuse, such as Women's Aid and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, focused on the inappropriate granting of contact where there was a fear, or indeed experience, of domestic violence, including violence against children. Groups representing non-resident parents argued that false accusations were frequently made to frustrate contact and that that was not adequately recognised by the courts. Resident parents with fears for the children's safety pointed to well-known cases of death and injury involving children who were in the care of the non-resident parent, but other witnesses pointed to the occurrence of child abuse, often by stepfathers or new partners, while children were at the resident parent's home. We found that there is a serious lack of research and reliable statistical information on the issue. The Department has introduced gateway forms to identify at the earliest possible stage whether domestic violence is an issue. We said that that needs to be carefully monitored to address safety issues and to guard against some parents being encouraged to use the forms to raise unfounded safety issues, leading to more delay in deciding cases. Enforcement action by the courts should not occur when there are unresolved safety concerns, but false accusations should not be allowed to become a mechanism to frustrate contact. The Department needs to follow up the introduction of the gateway forms by examining how often violence or abusive conduct subsequently occur. The evaluation of the forms is due to be completed by June this year. Will it include such an assessment? If not, perhaps because not enough time has elapsed to assess the consequences, will further work be done? We recommended the development of a wider range of options for supervised contact, and the Department for Education and Skills has allocated extra resources to that work. What decisions have been taken on expanding it over the next two years? Lack of transparency has been a major factor in creating dissatisfaction with the family justice system among those involved in cases. We found the rules on communicating the details of particular cases to be too strict. The restrictions on communicating details of family cases to those not involved apply to Members of Parliament handling constituency cases. The Minister of State became embroiled in the problem when her sister, who practises in the field, wrongly communicated details of a case to her. Although I think that she did so with the best of intentions, she faced a severe penalty. The restrictions have served to fuel the perception of bias and unfairness. Some of the evidence that we received suggested that the lack of openness has prevented proper scrutiny of the work done by family judges and court officials and made it impossible to prove or disprove perceived unfairness. The Government have addressed those limitations in so far as they affect MPs, peers and a wide range of those to whom parents might wish to refer their individual cases to seek advice or make a complaint, and new rules came into force last October. However, there remains the wider issue, which is publicly recognised by judges, that the secrecy with which family court cases are dealt with is, in Mr. Justice Munby's words, ““crippling public debate”” and doing ““serious harm””. The restrictions are designed to protect children and families, but they are so extensive that, to quote Mr. Justice Ryder, they militate against"““public confidence in the sensitive balancing of people's rights and needs that is an essential component of the social contract of family justice””." He and other judges have delivered some judgments in open court, subject to restrictions to protect the identity of those involved, to help to deal with the problem. We welcome that. Greater transparency is needed so that the public can have a more informed picture of what happens in family courts. We want family court proceedings generally to be open, subject to the discretion of the court and appropriate protection. We await the Government's final view and the consultation paper. The report considered very important issues affecting the lives of many children and separated parents. Some of those issues have generated heated and emotive public debate. There is a lot at stake for those most closely involved. In disputed cases, the non-resident parent—in most cases, but not all, the father—is deeply hurt and frustrated by the inability to maintain a relationship with and contact with his children. That is very painful for him. The parent with whom the child lives may find the contact arrangements disruptive and may, in some cases, have fears for the safety of the child, particularly if there has been previous domestic violence. Resolving those issues will be much more difficult because of the bitterness, resentment and mistrust that is part and parcel of the breakdown of the relationship between the parents. At the centre of it all is the child or young person, pulled in opposite directions and expected to live according to rules set by a court while trying to grow up, learn and enjoy life. To the child, a delay in the system often means separation from a parent, grandparents, cousins or even brothers and sisters. That is impossible for the child to understand and may mean that relationships are lost altogether. A year's delay is an age in the life of a child. As a young person develops their own life and activities, the requirement on the orders of a court to be in a particular place for a particular time, perhaps a long way from home, may seem increasingly unacceptable. Sometimes we need to step back from the paperwork and the processes and look at this from the standpoint of those whose daily lives it concerns. As the vast majority of parents recognise, the courts, by their very nature, are not well suited to organising people's family lives and resolving their conflicting emotions. If informal agreement cannot be achieved, the next best step is probably mediation. When that cannot be made to work and the courts become involved, we owe it to the children to make the system work for them as best we can. That is what many judges, court staff and practitioners are trying to do, and we have suggested ways in which they can be helped to do it as well as possible.