I was at Westminster today picking my way through the police lines and watching the mounted police advance towards Parliament Square. Tonight the student protesters broke some windows at the splendid building there that houses our new Supreme Court. That upset me more than any other damage they did. It symbolised the rule of law pitted against “protesters”, whose reasons for turning on the court were unclear.
I am asking an oral question next week about the drastic cuts proposed in legal aid and the effect they will have on family law cases. The cuts mean that there will be an increase in the number of people who will be unable to obtain a lawyer and as a result will have to represent themselves. Of course savings have to be made, but I don’t think this one will achieve that aim and may indeed in the end cost the country even more. There will be delays in proceedings, poorer outcomes and more judicial time and patience used up. No doubt the government thinks that more family disputes will be settled by mediation, but in fact research has shown that cases where there is no legal representation take longer and are less likely to settle. The Master of the Rolls recently warned that mediation is no substitute for justice; vulnerable people involved in family law disputes should not be left unaided to bear the burden of a law that is far too complex, at a time when both sides are at their most emotional. And might it not often turn out to be the wife who cannot afford a lawyer while the husband can?
Commentators may think I am concerned about this because I am involved with barristers. Not so. I regulate them, I do not represent them; their earnings are not my concern. I am very anxious however about fairness for families, and, as I have written before, the existing divorce/maintenance law is in such a bad state that it has the effect of stirring up disputes to a more confrontational level. This is a particularly bad situation in which to have to represent oneself.
The rule of law is supposedly “Restrain, arrest, detain” not ” Intimidate, violate, escalate”.
The Police may well be under resourced and their smaller numbers will mean ever increasing violent tactics until we see guns on the street. The protesters have begun to be tactical, soon will come organisers and leaders, it will no longer be protest but rebellion.
MP`s are known as “honourable” what honour is there in betraying pledges to the country ?
The cuts to legal aid will find more and more poor people finding other ways, these ways will be called illegal. We have seen the a rise in people trying to represent themselves in Court taking up more time and resources, the savings made in the cuts will not cover what will occur.
Aside from a few middle class people moaning about child benefit cuts, all the cuts appear to be hitting the poor. A reduction in policing is coming too, how long before Watt Tyler is resurrected ?
Tonight the student protesters broke some windows at the splendid building there that houses our new Supreme Court.
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One of the myriad of reasons why they are being forced to self fund is the millions spent on an office for a handful of judges.
They even went and spent the price of a house on their robes.
Total cost went past 100 million
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462090/Cost-Supreme-Court-soars-past-100m.html
That was up from an estimate of 6 million
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/cost-of-new-supreme-court-could-reach-acircpound32m-571305.html
That’s down to the Lords. They were part of the Lords. You did not monitor and control it. They were all members of the Lords.
Repeat this project after project after project in the UK, and that’s results in the consequences you see on the street.
Is it fair? No
Are you responsible? Yes.
It’s the waste of money on a ‘splendid building’
By the way, on the regulation, what happens to Lord Taylor if convicted? Are you going to regulate him?
If the dispute cannot be resolved outside of mediation or the courts the state should help itself to 80% of the estate leaving the remainder to be disputed legally. As for the children, they should be allowed to divorce their parents.
Dear Baroness Deech,
I read your blog entry with great interest and agree that wholesale removal of legal aid in family law would be disastrous. However, with the greatest of respect, there are a great many parents both female and male who, due to their own issues after divorce or separation, prevent the other parent being involved in their children’s lives. In many cases, as I am sure you are already aware, the involvement of Family court is then required, very often to deal with a whole raft of allegations that are aimed at the target parent (who is in most cases, let’s not beat around the bush here, male). I have personal experience of this and 6 months and 4 relatively short hearings in family court have cost me nigh on £10,000 (principally because Legal Aid was used to provide a Barrister for my ex wife right from the initial directions hearing, necessitating the employment of a barrister by myself). In other cases time-scales of 5 years are not unheard of and levels of cost exceeding £100,000 not unusual if a high court decision is sought on a leave to remove case.
I make this point because Legal aid in these cases needs to be curbed, not removed. Mediation is avoided easily and Legal aid readily given where a totally unsubstantiated allegation of “Domestic Abuse” is made. The merit of these allegations needs to be investigated prior to awarding legal aid to ensure equality of arms. Let us never forget that beyond two adults who should be able to work together in the best interests of their children there are innocent children the rest of whose lives can be adversely affected in a relatively short period of time. Time to children moves at a much slower rate than for us adults.
On the issue of mediation , this could only possibly work if both parents are viewed as equals, however the reality is that in recent years residence orders were given in order to placate angry exes which has led to a huge level of imbalance. Try as a Non resident parent to check with a child’s GP on their health and development and, even though Parental Responsibility is proven, permission of the resident parent is sought (and in many cases refused) before that information is relayed. this just one examplem there are many others.
LJ Wall stated recently that the fighting between middle class parents is an issue at the heart of the problem, it may be prudent to point out that it actually only takes the actions of one parent to force their situation into the court arena.
I wish you every success regarding your question to the House and I hope it serves to spur the debate to a sensible conclusion.
With Kindest Regards
Tony
(Loving Father of two wonderful children)
Unequal representation is common in many legal cases. Would it be of benefit to force equality even if this meant that each party represented themselves?
“Tonight the student protesters broke some windows at the splendid building there that houses our new Supreme Court.”
And the thugs the Government call Police, who instigated most of the violence, put sons and daughters in hospital. Dragged a Journalist from his wheelchair twice, put Paddy Besiris, (20), an elected representative of UWESU in hospital and caused a stroke and bleeding in the brain in Alfie Meadows to name just a few.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11972771
http://www.rstewart.org/2010/12/10/disabled-journalist-pulled-from-wheelchair-by-riot-police/
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/12/470205.html
I watched as the Police intimidated with raised batons & charged with horses those who had been put in those areas by the Police. It seemed they gathered people together to then brutally attack them.
It is still legal, I believe, in this country to defend yourself if you are in real threat of violence, these students were. Is it any wonder tempers were frayed and material objects that are worth far less than life are defaced !
The number of arrests were very low considering what occured yet the physical violence dealt out by Police was comparitively high. I can only presume the Police are now Judge and Jury and that physical violence against our children is once again legal !
Next time your in Court listening to a human rights case of a teenager being beaten by his parent for being disobedient remember you sanction this behaviour !
Dear Baroness Deech
I read your comments with much interest.
Divorcing couples are often emotionally charged. Such destructive feelings can, and so often do, manifest themselves in acts of bitterness and revenge. That, sadly, is human nature.
A ‘primary carer’ is very well aware that if s/he decides to lodge false or exaggerated allegations of DV (against him/herself and/or the children), s/he will stand a good chance of getting the other parent removed from the family home and/or excluded from the lives of the children for a substantial period of time. Evidence of DV is not required: an allegation is enough.
In my own case, such allegations led to me being separated from my two sons for seven months. Only after I had effectively proven my innocence was the relationship with my children permitted to be re-established. The initial lodging of false and unproven allegations by my ex-wife went completely unpunished, the court’s rationale being that to punish the ‘primary carer’ is tantamount to punishing the children. This rationale was recently reiterated by Sir Nicholas Wall.
If our Family Justice System is to serve the genuine paramount interests of children, it must surely act to protect their ongoing meaningful relationships with both parents whilst, at the same time, of course, protecting children from genuine abusers. Harming a child’s relationship with a good and loving parent is, itself, a form of abuse.
Mediation can only work if there exists a fair balance of power between the parents. If one parent has the power effectively to evict the other parent from the family home, and/or to exclude him/her from the lives of the children, s/he is hardly likely to give up that power in order to mediate on level terms!
Would we expect a militarily powerful State to sit down and mediate on equal terms with a small and powerless State or group of people? Of course not.
Why, then, do we suppose that separating parents would behave rationally and fairly?
Mediation is doomed to fail unless there is:
a) a rebuttable legal presumption of shared parenting
b) genuine legal protection of a child’s ‘Right to Family Life’ (which, for a child of separated parents, equates to maintaining a meaningful relationship with both of its parents)
c) effective punishment for the lodging of false or exaggerated allegations of DV, perhaps in the form of community service
At a hearing at the Court of Appeal in the Summer of 2009, I advised Lord Justice Wall (as he then was) that children were surely being ill-served by the courts permitting their emotionally-involved and legally-untrained parents to formulate and present legal cases essentially on behalf of their own children’s interests and Human Rights. As a LIP, I argued that I could not possibly hope to match my ex-wife’s barrister, and that the price for my probable failure would be paid by my children (my ex-wife was eligible for legal aid; I was not). I asked Wall LJ to appoint legal representation for my children, so that their best interests and Human Rights could be safe-guarded. His Lordship was legally constrained to refuse my request. He did, however, greatly sympathise with my proposition and advised me to pursue the matter with the ECHR, as he felt that such a course of action could potentially help the British legal system.
As you rightly point out, a reduction in Legal Aid will equate to a greater number of parents acting as LIPs, to the obvious detriment of their children’s interests and Human Rights.
The Childrens Act (1989) clearly states that the paramount interests of the child must be served. It is surely self-evident that this overriding duty to the child cannot be honoured if the child’s parents are left to construct and present legal cases on behalf of their children’s interests.
I propose that, in cases where children’s interests and Human Rights are at stake, the child is automatically ‘joined as a party to proceedings’, and is thus appointed a legal guardian and legal representation, in order to safe guard its interests and Human Rights. This is automatically done in New Zealand, to their huge credit.
Furthermore, if funds permit, the cost for the child’s legal representation should drawn from the parents’ assets, thereby guarding the public purse.
In my own case, over £100,000 was taken from the family assests by lawyers who acted to serve the parents’ wishes and needs. The children were left legally unrepresented. Surely, the child ought to be first in line for legal representation, ahead of their parents?
Mr BD
LIP father in Re D (Children) [2010] EWCA Civ 50
Legal Aid is lopsided justice. forced mediation is only way winners the children who get to see both parents. loosers are your comrades and obstinate parents who sort to use the children.
So everybody saves up for their share of the property owning democracy, when they marry, only for it to be dissipated, by a good many, on lawyers’ fees to decide who should have what?
It might have been better to remain more primitive in aspiration, to the days when only 45% of the population owned any part of their home at all.
Then it was merely hail and farewell.
Today nearly everybody owns a home, or part of it, and the lawyers and legislators, who re arranged the law, to facilitate the property owning democracy, also facilitate divorce, from which they make a monetary killing.
The affluent society causes unnecessary suffering, which lawyers exploit to the full.
I agree with the comments that family law is expensive, complex and sometimes unfair. To this end, I helped set up a new All Party Parliamentary Group on Family Law and the Court of Protection, which has held two public meetings on these issues. There will be more meetings in the New Year.
http://researchingreform.wordpress.com/category/all-party-parliamentary-group-on-family-law-and-the-court-of-protection/
“It symbolised the rule of law pitted against “protesters”, whose reasons for turning on the court were unclear. ”
Here, let me help you out as to why the protestors may find themselves unsympathetic to the law.
“I was at Westminster today picking my way through the police lines and watching the mounted police advance towards Parliament Square.”
Happy to be of service.
Well said. The impact on support for families in need will be substantial, and since (as I understand it) only those actually in the course of domestic violence proceedings will be eligible, is there not a significant risk to women and children? The legal aid cuts, plus those to higher education, along with GP commissioning and fund holding and the abolition of NICE add up, in effect, the dismantling of the welfare state – an ideological shift that is taking place under the guise of saving money. At least Baroness Thatcher was honest about her motives …