Child protection and the modernised family justice system

This chapter sets out to examine the impending changes in law and practice in the context of child protection and goes on to explore the implications of these changes for the child protection system. It focuses on the Family Justice Review, the Munro review, the Government response to these and the proposals for a ‘modernised family justice system’. It is suggested that the changes heralded by these documents will not necessarily lead to better decision-making in relation to vulnerable children and their families. In addition, the changes will leave social workers and perhaps even judges more vulnerable than ever to criticism

Justifying the LASPO Act: authenticity, necessity, suitability, responsibility and autonomy.

This article examines the ways in which the radical cuts to legal aid in private family law cases were presented and justified by the then government. It is argued that the targeting of legal aid in these cases for austerity measures was legitimated and facilitated by a skewed interpretation of history; by the use of the neoliberal discourses of responsibility and autonomy; by minimising the importance of family disputes; and by means of negative portrayals of the role of law and lawyers in such cases. The article goes on to consider the impact of the legislation and concludes that it is the competent poor, the unacknowledged vulnerable and the unassertive who are most affected by the LASPO Act. Since women, collectively, are more likely than men to fall into these categories, the result is that women, in particular, who benefited historically from wider and easier access to justice, are those who are most disadvantaged by its curtailment

Misogyny as a Hate Crime

Nottingham police are treating misogyny as a hate crime: ‘The force defines misogyny hate crime as “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman”’ (The Guardian 10 Sept 2016). The issue raised at the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Domestic Violence in March 2017 was whether this could be rolled out nationwide or whether the term misogyny would have to be replaced by ‘gender based’ hate crime. In my view a case could be made for retaining the term misogyny – but it may be contested. The problem has been identified as the Equality Act 2010 and whether it is legitimate to treat men and women differently. The Equality Act is not necessarily a bar to treating misogyny as a hate crime because it is aimed at dealing with a different mischief/issue

A Presumption that ‘Involvement’ of Both Parents is Best: Deciphering Law’s Messages

The Children and Families Bill 2013 will amend the Children Act 1989 to introduce a presumption that it is in children’s best interests that both parents remain involved in their lives after separation or divorce. This article sets out to examine the rationale for this change and to evaluate its likely impact

Regulating Emotion: Judging Contact Disputes

This article examines the ways in which judges reach their conclusions in disputed contact cases; how they construct the problem requiring resolution and how they seek to resolve it. It begins by reviewing the ways that judges, through a variety of discursive strategies such as their deployment of welfare discourse and through their use of harm warrants, sustain the now well known assumptions that contact is beneficial and lack of it is damaging, so making orders in favour of contact and their enforcement seem inevitable and unchallengeable. In similar ways, judges also designate conflict as harmful, so rendering parents who fight over contact ‘bad’ . The article then goes on to show how these starting points form the basis of judges’ constructions of dispute and so of the parties before them

Book Review: Delivering family justice in the 21st century

Edited by Mavis Maclean, John Eekelaar and Benoit Bastard, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2015 ISBN 978-1-84946-912-8 This volume is edited by Mavis Maclean and John Eekelaar, two distinguished Oxford academics whose track record collaborating together is a long and impressive one, together with Benoit Bastard, a well - known French sociologist. The book is part of the Onati International Series in Law and Society and the contributors come from a wide range of professional groupings in several jurisdictions

Michael Freeman and the Rights and Wrongs of Resolving Private Law Disputes

This chapter examines some of Freeman’s ideas and the extent to which they have been incorporated into the family law landscape. It argues that, while Freeman was prescient in predicting some of the ways in which family law would change, and while some of his hopes have been realised, they have not always been realised in the way he intended or, indeed, in ways he could have foreseen. Some of these changes have brought about consequences detrimental to vulnerable family members. These effects, when anticipated by government, have been ‘unproclaimed’ and minimised. In other cases, the consequences of changes to the law have been unintended. And the response of government has been to redouble its efforts and to seek a solution in yet more legislation