Press Release

 

 

The Constitutional Affairs Committee has today released its latest report on the sorry tale of so many sad tales so badly, and slowly, heard.

The report by the Committee is unusually strongly worded for the Court of Westminster.  The Family Resolutions Project was a ‘failure’ and they were in no doubt why ’we believe that it should be run on a compulsory basis’ [para 29].

There was no progress on child-damaging delays: ‘funding difficulties are holding back the judiciary from improving the service that it can offer’.[para 31].

District Judge Crichton said ‘I am still the D.J. who sits in family [matters] full-time … I do not see any good reason why ..’ [para 9].

With management of the Division still in such a poor state, the Committee was unable to start to look at fundamental issues in children law: case management and judicial continuity.  But the Committee was very clear about one way of improving quality control in the division: ‘expect that moves to open justice in the family court will quickly follow’ [para 18].

Families Need Fathers welcomes this report, which the government would be ill-advised to ignore.  The Committee has done its homework and looked at for example, the pernicious mis-connections between the legal aid rules and mediation.  In fact we advocate the complete removal of public funding for advocacy work in parenting-time disputes, as the money could be much better spent elsewhere in Early Intervention and monitoring programmes.  We do not believe, if they could see it, that the public would tolerate the steady stream of lawyers getting public funding in private courts to attempt to block the contact of children to their parents.

Much more disappointing was the Family Division’s President’s letter in the appendix of the report.   The Committee had been so dispirited by the Judges’ put-down of current legislation to enforce Contact Orders, that they had asked for their suggestions by letter.  There was absolutely nothing there which the Committee could draw comfort from.   ‘CAFCASS will need to be properly funded to [do post-order monitoring]’   – but is there going to be any connection between CAFCASS reporting a breach, and the courts actually taking any action?  If all that happens is that CAFCASS tells the parent that he’s not getting the contact that was ordered, we’re back where we started.  For many non resident parents the unfortunate tendency of the Family Courts, where a breach of an order in the child’s interest is discovered,  is to decide that the order wasn’t in the child’s interest, after all.  They dump the responsibility for enforcing contempt of court on the ‘aggrieved party’.   How can an aggrieved four-year-old child apply?  They dismiss placing penalties on a resident parent because she/he will place the blame of the child’s impoverishment on the removed parent.   So why place the onus on the removed parent for enforcement?

We think the Family Division judges should start being fit for the purpose.
 

 

Families Need Fathers(FNF) is a registered charity providing information and support on shared parenting issues arising from family breakdown, and support to divorced and separated parents, irrespective of gender or marital status. Our primary concern is the maintenance of the child’s relationship with both parents. Founded in 1975, FNF helps thousands of parents every year.

 

Please see Families Need Fathers ‘programme for change’ Father’s Day Manifesto