Family Justice Review – Government Response

Below is the text of the email sent to the “Partner Group” i.e. those who formally contributed to the FJR. Am mid-prep for a conference so cannot read or comment on the Government response, and offer this in lieu. More proper comment later… The full Government response can be accessed here. Today the Government has announced [...]

Justice Select Committee Report Published

The Justice Select Committee today published it’s report on the Government’s proposed reforms of legal aid. I am reliably informed that family justice features heavily in the report, which adopts much of what the FLBA has had to say on the matter about the potential adverse impact of the proposals on children, and the inapposite [...]

A GIFT from the MoJ

I was charmed to receive in my inbox today an invitation to help The Man promote the new policy of compulsory thinking-about-mediation. How kind. The editorial and content team at the MoJ thought the press release might be “good fuel for Pinktape”. Adrian would like me to help him raise awareness “that there is an alternative [...]

Privacy Law Change Shelved

As heralded here the implementation of the CSFA 2010 reforms has been shelved pending the report of the Family Justice Review Committee in the autumn of 2011 (The MoJ website summarises the announcement here). Which is odd, because the terms of reference of that committee relate only to system and process and specifically exclude making [...]

Thoughtful and Thought Provoking

A couple of pieces in the Guardian which are worth a read: here and here. No soundbites, just common sense and a thoughtful approach to the problems. The first, by a very sensible and knowledgeable family magistrate, almost makes me waver in my long held view that family cases are unsuitable for disposal in the [...]

Rozenberg on MoJ Cuts

Joshua Rozenberg warns of injudicious cost cutting of courts and legal aid: Many of the economies we can expect will be false ones. Cutting legal aid will simply lead to more litigants in person. Cases will take longer and court costs will rise. Vulnerable children will be at greater risk. There will be more miscarriages [...]

WHY CARE?

Background to this post appears here. . Alas, this is not the beautifully crafted discussion piece I had wanted to post, but I cannot devote as much time to this as I would like, and so I offer it as your starter for ten in its slightly disjointed and unpolished form… . Firstly, let me [...]

Meltdown Imminent

Couldn’t have put it better myself. This letter from the ALC published in today’s Times is spot on. POSTSCRIPT: More superlatives – this time it’s implosion rather than meltdown (per Wall LJ).

Judge Dread – The Future

The Family Justice Review is calling for written evidence by the end of September (see here). Anyone who is considering submitting a response should consider this: at the recent oral evidence session I attended with other lawyers, the panel were asking serious and reaching questions about the extent to which the courts needed to be [...]

Family Justice Review

Further to my previous post, I am en route back to the sticks having thrown my two penn’orth in the general direction of the Family Justice Review Panel (I got ‘em, right between the eyes). I was somewhat surprised to find that the session was ‘private’ (and apparently not recorded), and so I will not [...]