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Select Committee Report

Our full summary is here.

There are a number of changes promoted by the Select Committee which are partially in line with our submission’s requests. Some include:

The clause making FDR free for those eligible for legal aid.
Allowing protected person and respondent programme providers to provide safety information back to the court and requirement to feed this on to protected persons.
Improving definition of FDR and PIP and setting out the requirements of these in the Act.
Allowing judges to override provisions preventing legal representation

There are still major areas of concern, however:

The new Bill places greater emphasis on judges as the gate keepers to legal representation which means that access will vary from judge to judge/court to court.
FDR remains and is strengthened but the overriding principle of diminished access to court has not been addressed.
Bill sends message that CoCA applicants must first apply for a protection order in order to gain the right to have the court assess the safety of their children when there is domestic violence.
CoCA still does not define safety of a child.
Final parenting orders are still preferred over interim orders.
No set of best practice principles for the Family Court.
Those applying to the court for exemptions from FDR because of DV must still provide an affidavit if not under a protection order.

We’ll keep you posted of further developments as they arise.