Almost a year on from major reform, Tim Parker assesses the family justice system
Almost a year has passed since the introduction of what Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, described as “the largest reform of the family justice system any of us have seen or will see in our professional lifetimes” (View from the President’s Chambers, no. 11). Although he was also quick to point out that he didn’t accept that the new rules concerning expert instructions and the 26 week limit would “prejudice the quality of justice or the interests of those who appear before us”. So as the first anniversary of the changes nears, how has the system fared?
The illness
The architects of the Children Act 1989 (CA 1989) expected that care applications would last no more than 12 weeks, with most being concluded within eight. It is unclear whether these timescales were ever realistic; what is clear is that the length of applications increased over the years. Within five years of the Act coming into force in 1991, care cases were taking an average of
