Dominic Raab seeks financial penalties for parents clogging up family courts

The Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab seeks to implement penalties for parents who bring ‘tit for tat’ cases in the family courts.

Dominic Raab plans on making mediation the default process for divorce cases to prevent the family courts from being clogged up with parental disputes. The Sunday Times reported last week that the Justice Secretary is making plans to deter ‘revenge’ cases from going to court by making mediation the ‘default’ option in most family disputes, and allowing the courts to award sizable legal costs against the parent abusing the system.

The newspaper interviewed a source close to Raab, who said: “He [Raab] is keen to make mediation the default. He is looking at incentives and disincentives to encourage parents to take that route.”

The ruling is reported to not include cases where family members have been subjected to physical or mental violence, the source adds: “The exception is, of course, those cases involving domestic abuse or safeguarding issues. He thinks those should be kept under a judge’s purview.”

“Of the 50% of family cases that don’t involve domestic abuse, [Raab] is clear they should be resolvable without going to court and he has commissioned proposals as to how he can make that happen”.

Using children as a weapon to seek revenge after divorce or break-up has been a rising factor in financial and child arrangement disputes in the last decade. Children exposed to conflict are also known to suffer from mental health issues, that can later result in physical health issues.

However, the government launched a £1m mediation voucher scheme earlier in March, with the aim of steering eligible families towards mediation and reducing the number of family cases going to court. The scheme has since been topped up by £800,000 in the summer. Subsequently, it appears that more cases of family disputes are being resolved outside of court.

Last month, Sir Andrew McFarlane revealed that 77% of cases reached a whole or partial agreement, where 2,000 vouchers valued at £500 per couple had been issued since the scheme started.

Mediation was the Coalition Government’s ‘replacement’ for legal aid when most of the private family law matters were largely removed from funding in 2013. Parents can receive free mediation if at least one of them is eligible for legal aid, otherwise, mediation must be paid for by the parents.

In response to the report, a Law Society spokesperson has said: “There seems to be a belief among many people that lawyers necessarily mean courts, when in fact the opposite is the case. The evidence of the past decade is that taking lawyers out of the equation led to fewer cases going to mediation, and more cases going to court. With parents acting without advice and representation, they often bring misconceived arguments and irrelevant issues to court.”

“The best way to keep more cases out of court and to reduce the number of inappropriate applications is not to introduce financial penalties, but to ensure that all separating couples can get legal advice and representation to guide them through the process.”

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