New combined Family Courts have come into being in England and Wales as part of family justice system reforms, in what is seen as “a hugely important change” to family law.
As well as the new courts, there will also be new time frames for cases where children are taken into care and compulsory mediation awareness sessions for separating couples.
There are currently around 270,000 new family cases a year dealing with issues affecting children, such as local authority intervention, divorce, domestic violence and adoption.
Cases such as care and supervision were taking anything up to 56 weeks to be completed in 2011 and, although that rate has come down, the reforms address a range of continuing shortcomings.
These include rules to ensure that care cases will be typically completed within six months in a single Family Court, which replaces the current three-tier court system.
It will also be compulsory for separating couples to attend a mediation awareness session before taking disputes over their finances or their children to court.
In addition, there will be limits on the amount of expert evidence that can be used in cases involving children; in fact it will only be allowed in cases when it is necessary to resolve the case justly.
The emphasis in family cases will also be shifted onto the needs of the child rather than on the rights of the parents, with the abolition of such labels as “residence” and “contact”.
The reforms will also ensure that the right level of judge is appointed for a particular Family Court case and that it is held in the most suitable location, while, for the first time, Justices’ clerks and their assistants will be authorised to assist the judges.
According to Family Justice Minister Simon Hughes, the new rules will provide “security and certainty” for children and will prevent them from being “moved from pillar to post”.