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Seanad passes ‘milestone’ bill on family courts

The Seanad has passed a bill that will set up a new dedicated Family Court within the existing courts structure.

Once enacted, the legislation will provide for judges who have specialist training or experience in dealing with family-law matters to be assigned full-time to the Family Courts divisions of each court.

The Minister for Justice welcomed the passage of the Family Courts Bill 2022, describing it as “an important milestone in the much-needed reform of our family-justice system”.

Other key measures in the bill include:

• The creation of new positions of principal judge of the Family High Court, Family Circuit Court and judge of the Family District Court to ensure proper and effective management of these courts,
• Ongoing professional training in family law for judges,
• Allowing for joint applications to be made under for judicial separation, divorce, and dissolution of civil partnership, and supporting mediation and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in such cases, and
• The establishment of a dedicated Family Law Rules Committee, or alternatively, Family Law Sub-Committees of the general Courts Rules Committees, to ensure that the rules of court in relation to family-law proceedings are coherent and applied with consistency across all levels of the family courts.

Personal cross-examination

Some amendments to the bill were introduced at committee stage in the Seanad, with additional wording aimed at ensuring that the safety of parties to proceedings is considered – including when considering whether there should be mediation or other forms of ADR.

New provisions on the prohibition of personal cross-examination have also been inserted, like those in the Domestic Violence Act 2018. 

The legal profession and other organisations have expressed concern about a proposal in the bill to move divorce, separation, cohabitation, and civil-partnership cases to the District Court.