It has been reported that the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, is planning to make family mediation mandatory for separating couples mandatory rather than voluntary, as it is currently. This would be for both child arrangements and financial issues surrounding the breakup of a relationship.
The idea behind this fundamental change is to try and keep separated couples, who cannot agree on child arrangements, out of the courtroom and children away from the stresses and strains of watching their parents slugging it out court.
It has been stated that this would be for straight forward family law cases and wouldn’t include those cases which had allegations of/or a history of domestic violence.
Taking those exclusions to one side, what this would mean is that separating couples would have to come to mediation for both financial issues and child arrangements and view court as a last resort. It is hoped that with these core changes, some 19,000 separated families would be able to reach an agreement with a qualified family mediator over their finances and child arrangements.
Dominic Raab, said: “When parents drag out their separation through lengthy and combative courtroom battles it impacts on their children’s school work, mental health and quality of life.
“Our plans will divert thousands of time-consuming family disputes away from the courts – to protect children and ensure the most urgent cases involving domestic abuse survivors are heard by a court as quickly as possible.”
These are simply proposals at this stage and will undergo a government led consultation which will run for 3 months, closing on 15 June 2023.
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