Parliament
launches review of family court cases
by Jean-Yves
Gilg
The Lawyer -
20th September 2004
http://lawzone.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=112081
Consequence
or coincidence, as another angry father protests for better access to
his children, MPs announce the launch of an inquiry into the effectiveness
of the family court system.
Divorced
fathers who staged a series of stunts as part of their ongoing campaign
for better access to their children could readily claim that their action
is paying off as the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee announced
today the launch of an inquiry into the family court system; but whether
fathers throwing purple flour in the Commons or posing as Batman on
a balcony at Buckingham Palace have actually had any influence on the
process is another question.
For
the man in charge of overseeing the review, Liberal Democrat MP Alan
Beith, Chairman of the Committee, the answer is an unequivocal “no”.
“We began to work towards an inquiry like this many months ago
and it partly flows out of work we did over a year ago,” said
the MP in an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning.
“We published a report on the Children’s And Family Courts
Advisory Service (‘CAFCASS’) which was very critical [...]
so it’s an interest we’ve had for some time.”
“Every
Member of Parliament knows, not because of stunts and things like that,
but because of the post bag and the cases they’ve dealt with”,
the MP continued, “but equally there are mothers who are concerned
that they may be pressed into a situation where someone who has committed
domestic violence on them, and may even have a record for doing that,
is given access to their children in circumstances where they worry
about their safety.” The committee will also want to hear from
organisations representing children about how they view the court process.
The
inquiry is only beginning but Alan Beith indicated that among the many
questions they will be looking at is that of equal access and whether
the interests of children should come first. However, equal access was
explicitly ruled out by Lord Falconer when he announced the publication
of the Green Paper on parental separation in July: “there cannot
and will not be an automatic presumption of 50/50 contact. Children
cannot be divided like the furniture or the CD collection. It's more
complex than that."
The
concerns of the committee’s chairman however, are that we may
be expecting the court to do the impossible, with judges having to rule
on cases “in an atmosphere of great emotion and anguish in family
disputes.” According to the MP, out-of-court processes could be
more likely to provide the answer: “Resolving problems about contact
and access between people who fall out, seriously fall out when a relationship
has broken down, is probably in some ways best done through a mediating
process rather than expecting a kind of judgment of Solomon where a
court can allocate time and parcel out children, and expect that to
be readily enforceable.”
The
deadline for responses to the Green Paper is 1 November. Meanwhile,
the Select Committee will be gathering written and oral evidence from
interested parties with a view to publishing its report early in the
new year.
The
MANAGEMENT of GREEN PAPER Family Policy 20th September 2004
