The Family Court of Australia: A Triumph or Disaster?

1988 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-11
Author(s):  
J. Neville Turner
Keyword(s):  
Family Court ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Radical Reform ◽  
Family Courts ◽  
Divorce Laws ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Law ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Law Commission

The Family Court was introduced in Australia in 1976, almost by legislative legerdemain. There had been little debate about it beforehand. There was no Royal Commission, no Law Reform Report. There was little public agitation or debate about its merits. It was suddenly upon us, as part and parcel of the reform of the divorce laws.How this differs from the position in other countries! In England, the Law Commission invited submissions on Family Courts as early as 1970. The Finer Committee in 1974 strongly recommended them! Numerous commentators since have advocated them in one form or another. The debate continues! But none has yet been set up! France and Germany have established tribunals loosely akin to our Family Court. But they are pallid imitations only. Other countries have tried some experiments. But I know of no country, save possibly Japan, that has established such a radical reform as Australia.

Law Reform

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Supreme Courts ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
The Law ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Law Commission

This chapter assesses the process of law reform in France. Although a full-time Commission has been set up in France to deal with the codification of the law, no similar permanent institution exists for keeping the law under review and for making recommendations for its systematic reform. There is thus no French equivalent for the Law Commission such as in other countries. Therefore law reform initiative has been left entirely to government departments and Members of Parliament and this is confirmed by the 1958 Constitution. Consequently, in practice, the majority of bills have their origin in government departments, and in particular the Ministry of Justice, whose function it is to deal with the organisation of the civil and criminal justice system. The role of supreme courts in reforming the law is also highlighted in the chapter.

16. Surrogacy

Medical Law ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 861-904
Author(s):  
Emily Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Family Courts ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Law Commission ◽  
Academic Debate

All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter first discusses the legitimacy of surrogacy, and considers the particular issues raised by outsourcing surrogacy to India. It then turns to the regulation of surrogacy in the UK. Although commercial involvement in surrogacy is prohibited, the court has a wide discretion to retrospectively authorize payments to surrogacy mothers. This chapter considers the increasing number of surrogacy cases reaching the family courts, many of them involving overseas surrogacy arrangements, and evaluates how the law might be reformed, once the Law Commission has completed its review.

Right to Parental Care

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asha Bajpai
Keyword(s):  
Law Reform ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Family Courts ◽  
Custody Of Children ◽  
The Family ◽  
Shared Parenting ◽  
The Right ◽  
A Minor ◽  
And Control ◽  
Physical Care

Custody refers to the physical care and control of a minor whereas guardianship is a wider term and includes rights and duties with respect to the care and control of minor’s person and property, and includes the right to make decisions relating to the minor. The present legal regime relating to guardianship and custody of children is discussed, including the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, the personal and matrimonial laws, and relevant provisions in the Family Courts Act and Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act, 2005. The emerging concepts of shared parenting, joint custody, and the interparental child removal or abduction of child is included. There is review and analysis of some major reported judicial decisions. A comparative survey of international laws and trends has been done. Suggestions for law reform in the best interest of the child have been given.

The Defective Premises Act 1972—Defective Law and Defective Law Reform

1974 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Liability ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
The Law ◽  
Draft Bill ◽  
Civil Remedy ◽  
Law Commission ◽  
Poor Show

The Defective Premises Act 1972—which did not come into force until 1 January 1974—was intended to do three things: first, it was intended to create a new civil remedy against incompetent architects and jerry builders who design or build bad dwelling-houses; secondly, it was intended to abolish the anomalous immunity of vendors and lessors from negligence actions; and thirdly, it was intended to widen the liability of landlords for defects in the premises which they let. The Act is based on the draft Bill annexed to the Law Commission's fortieth report, “Civil Liability of Vendors and Lessors of Defective Premises”—although in the Act the Law Commission's proposals have been considerably watered down. During the passage of the Act through Parliament the Law Commission was congratulated on its “remarkable piece of work,” and comentators have since welcomed it, either without criticism or else with fulsome praise. So excited was everyone by the label “law reform” that no one seems to have pointed out a number of obvious defects in the Law Commission's original proposals, defects which were multiplied when those proposals were heavily watered down. The final measure is open to a number of criticisms. It is, with all due respect to the Law Commission and to the sponsors of the Bill, a measure which adopts excessively cumbrous means to achieve relatively modest ends; which is drafted in terms which are longwinded, ugly and obscure; and which ultimately changes little—a poor show in view of the complications it creates in the process.

Time for an English Commercial Code?

1997 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-536
Author(s):  
Dame Mary Arden
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Commercial Code ◽  
Unique Experience ◽  
The Common ◽  
Systematic Development ◽  
The Law ◽  
Lord Chancellor ◽  
Law Commission

Parliament has imposed on the Law Commission the duty to review the law of England and Wales “with a view to its systematic development and reform, including in particular the codification of [the] law … and generally the simplification and modernisation of the law”. There are a number of points which flow from this. First, as a body which reviews great swathes of the common law to see if they require to be modernised or simplified, the Law Commission has a unique standpoint from which to view the strengths and weaknesses of the common law method. Second, it has unique experience of law reform and the Parliamentary process. Third, in discharge of its functions, it has an interest in seeing that, if codification is appropriate, a recommendation to that effect is made to the Lord Chancellor. It need not be the Law Commission which carries out the recommendation, and indeed the Law Commission could not carry out a project purely of its own initiative.

scholarly journals Navigating the Family Law Provisions: Migrant Women’s Voices

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 131-145
Author(s):  
Ana Borges Jelinic
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Women's Voices ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Law ◽  
Permanent Residency ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Legal Immigration

This article considers the voices of migrant women engaging with Home Affairs to guarantee permanent residency (PR) in Australia after experiencing domestic violence. Data collected from longitudinal interviews with 20 participants were considered, with two participants’ stories analysed in detail. The research indicates how the legal immigration system is set up in a way that does not listen to women and disadvantages them. Particular issues pointed out include extended timelines, lack of concern for cultural differences and inconsistencies in the process, and how they affect women undermining the goal of the law, which is to protect migrants from sponsors’ violence.

Actuarial Assessment of Damages

1968 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Prevett
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Personal Injury ◽  
Fatal Accident ◽  
Actuarial Assessment ◽  
Working Paper ◽  
Personal Injury Litigation ◽  
Actuarial Approach ◽  
The Law ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Law Commission

The purpose of this paper is to provide an opportunity for discussion within our profession of ‘the use of an actuarial approach and actuarial evidence’ in the assessment of damages arising out of personal injury and fatal accident litigation. The need for such a paper was intimated in the pages of our Journal by William Phillips in his Review of Principles of the Law of Damages by Professor Harry Street. Since the publication of what Phillips described as ‘from the actuarial point of view…the most important legal textbook which has been published in the last 50 years’ the employment of actuaries in this field has been widely discussed within the legal profession. The most important recent development has been the inclusion of personal injury litigation as Item VI of the first programme of the Law Commission set up by the Law Commission Act, 1965. The words quoted in the first sentence above are taken from the list of ‘Questions for Examination’ under (b) of Item VI, ‘Assessment of Damages’. The current examination being conducted by the Law Commission makes this a particularly appropriate time for a sessional meeting on this subject. The writer has had the advantage of a sight of a preliminary Working Paper prepared by the Law Commission and will be quoting certain extracts from that paper below. It must however be stressed that the Working Paper is a preliminary one which attempts to do no more than canvass views: it in no way sets out the conclusions of the Law Commission on the matters discussed.

4. The Single Family Court

Family Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 36-36
Author(s):  
Roiya Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
Family Court ◽  
Business Rules ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Judicial Process ◽  
Family Courts ◽  
The Family

This chapter is a short but important chapter. It provides an overview of the Single Family Court, which was created in April 2014. This is a huge change from when there used to be two family courts, magistrates’ and county court. It summarizes the effects of the Single Family Court and outlines who is involved in the judicial process within the new structure. It discusses how the allocation of cases within the Single Family Court are done by ‘gatekeepers’ and the new points of entry for cases. It outlines that the rules for allocation can be found in the Family Court (Composition and Distribution of Business) Rules 2014.

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