Family justice modernisation proposals published

Mr Justice Ryder’s report into the modernisation of Family Justice has now been published.

Mr Justice Ryder was appointed in November following the Family Justice Review, with a brief to make recommendations by the end of July after months of wide-ranging consultation.

The report, Judicial proposals for the modernisation of family justice, contains a number of suggestions for improvement for the Family Courts, including:

• The single Family Court will be the vehicle for a significant change of culture characterised by strong judicial leadership and management and evidence-based good practice.
• The single Family Court will be a network of Local Family Court Centres judicially led and managed by the Designated Family Judges, where all levels of judge and magistrate will sit as Judges of the Family Court.
• The effective management of judicial resources will help to reduce delay by better deployment practices which improve continuity and listing.
• The immediate challenge is to develop effective methods of assisting self-representing litigants in private law cases, while maintaining fairness to all parties.
• Self-representing litigants will need to be assisted to understand and comply with the procedures which are necessary to achieve fairness in financial remedy cases.
• The High Court’s unique jurisdiction will be preserved.
• Consideration should always be given to how the voice of the child is to be heard in family proceedings.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0.