Families in meltdown and an under-resourced system
I see from the BBC website that Mr Justice Coleridge has weighed in to the debate on the changing nature of family life in the UK and the growing legal-aid crisis. The Western Circuit Family Division liaison judge was speaking at Resolutions’ annual conference in Brighton and appears to have given a headline-grabbing speech.
Thanks to the BBC article and a Resolution News Briefing it is clear that this well-respected figure was not mincing his words.
Practitioners will be pleased to see Sir Pauls’ support for their current plight with him noting that, “the family justice system in this country has been and is being mismanaged and neglected by government”. Equally the Judge is reported as having urged policymakers to, “Stop chipping away at the family justice system and trying to have it on the cheap”.
Coleridge J also drew an ineresting comparison: “There has never been a greater need for the public to have access to a lawyer with speacialist family law and family justice experience than now. They are as vital a commodity in our national life as the local GP. Indeed their tasks are not dissimilar. When a family is going through crisis whether it be medical or psychological or legal, caused by family collapse, the first port of call is and should be the local GP if it is medical, and the local family lawyer, solicitor and barrister, if it is legal.”
Mr Justice Coleridges’ comments will be welcomed by practitioners who are rapidly being forced out of publicly funded family law owing to the growing cuts and an increasingly unprofitable sysyem which, though family lawyers may be committed to, other partners in mixed firms are not prepared to stomach.
The Judge also somewhat self-interestedly referred to the problems faced by the courts due to under-resourcing and the delays flowing from this. This will certainly be familiar to practitioners. Last week I tried to list a 5 day final care hearing and the earliest firm fixture was at the tail end of November - the system simply can not keep up, despite dedicated and expert judges and listing officers, and this is undoubtedly to the detriment of those resorting to the courts in their time of need.
The papers will probably however, attach rather less importance to these comments on the system, than on those made by Sir Paul alikening the threat from the growing number of family breakdowns to the dangers of climate change. The Judge urged the government to address the issue head-on and do something about it, mkaing it plain in the process that the current conservative plans are no answer either, “I am not talking about tinkering with tax rates for married couples. That is irrelevant and ineffectual window dressing”. The Judge also appears to ahve gone out of his way not to criticise single-parent families though we shall have to wait and see how his observations are portrayed in the press.
Finally the Judge urged a re-appraisal of of much current law including that relating to cohabitants, divorce and ancillary relief, noting that the social mores of the country today are totally different to those applicable when the applicable laws in those areas were last addressed.
Will the government act on any of the issues raised in this interesting speech? With the economy going south and the politcal race hotting up, family law - which is far more controversial than criminal law - is unlikely to be at the centre of any manifestos. Still, at least Sir Paul’s comments will add a welcome spotlight on the current mess - assuming that is, that the media give a fair representation of the Judge’s words.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:28
[…] be found here in full: resolution-press080404. If you want to read some commentary you can visit the Laws of Love blog which beat me to it. All I need say is that everything he says rings true with my experience, […]
May 2nd, 2008 at 17:00
I am also very interested in this area, I believe government should leave these issues to courtes
December 5th, 2008 at 10:05
I was interested to read what you said about Mr. Justice Coleridge’s speech to Resolution. You may like to see …..
Andrew Selous MP spoke in the debate on the Queen’s speech on Wednesday 3rd December 2008:
“Earlier this year, Mr. Justice Coleridge, a man with 37 years’ experience of the family courts in this country, told the national conference of Resolution, the family lawyers’ association, that he believed that restoring family stability and doing something about family breakdown needed to be at the top of the Government’s agenda. His remarks were prescient, and Members of this House should listen to a man who has 37 years’ experience of this country’s family law system. The events involving baby P, which shocked all in this House, are a tragic reminder of what can go wrong when families break down in a truly shocking way.
We learned today from a report in The Lancet that 10 per cent. of children suffer some form of ill treatment every year in our society. That figure is far too high, and I want us to spend more time focusing on prevention, rather than on cure. There have rightly been cries for more inspections of social services and so on, but where is the focus, the vision and the determination from those on the Government Benches to give our constituents the skills and support to make a success of this area of their lives in the first place? Right relationships, responsible fatherhood and motherhood, healthy marriages and positive parenting are some of the most important things in people’s lives, and we all pick up the pieces and pay for the consequences when those areas go wrong.
I wish to pay tribute to Cambridgeshire county council—the neighbouring authority to the county of Bedfordshire, which I represent. Its “Vision For Cambridgeshire” has committed to reducing the amount of family breakdown in Cambridgeshire—that is doing something positive. I am in discussions with the new shadow Central Bedfordshire authority to see whether my local authority can commit to doing something similar.”
As Andrew Selous says, Cambridgeshire’s latest version of its ‘vision’ includes a reference to reducing family breakdown:
“5.2.5 Reducing the incidence of family breakdown by supporting families through the provision of appropriate services
5.3.1 Promoting community cohesion”
There are not many lawyers or politicians talking about ‘prevention’. It is good to see that some are doing so, and that some local authorities are starting to address the issue of family breakdown from a different angle than just picking up the pieces.