It may be time to consider more open scrutiny of family law courts, family lawyer Joan O’Mahony has said.

Speaking at the Law Society Family and Child Law Conference on Friday, O’Mahony said that while she agreed with the in-camera rule, it was time for better recording of family law decisions.

Without proper recording of decisions, no true picture of family law cases, and why decisions were made, can emerge, she said.

Repeat factors

Recording of decisions will offer precedents on repeat factors, notwithstanding that every family law case is unique, O’Mahony said.

Joan O’Mahony practices in Deansgrange Co Dublin and is a member of the Law Society Family Law Committee.

O’Mahony also sits on the monitoring committee of the national strategy for domestic and gender-based violence.

She also warned that many legal practitioners may need training on ‘gaslighting’ or psychological manipulation, which sows the seeds of incapacity and reduces capacity and confidence.  

Caitríona Gleeson of Safe Ireland said that she had not expected to see the first conviction by a jury of peers of a man found guilty of the new crime of ‘coercive control’ in her lifetime.

'Incredible changes'

Domestic violence activist Gleeson said she was “very excited by the incredible changes” that came in under the Domestic Violence Act 2018which created the criminal offence of “coercive control”.

Gleeson said that Ireland is witnessing a paradigm shift in the response to domestic abuse, with this new offence.

The new law is a great gift to advocates, who can now make wider cases of inappropriate behaviour, Gleeson said.

She suggested that practitioners should take specialist diploma in coercive control, linked to the experience of domestic violence advocates.

She said that the first point of disclosure of coercive control can be a risky and critical point, whether that is to a garda, a legal practitioner, or a doctor, or to a frontline advocate.

At fault

Coercive control is designed by its very nature to instil a belief system that the complainant is at fault for what has happened to them, she said.

This belief reduces the space for action, Gleeson continued, and the ‘chains of support’ can be fragmented.

Family lawyer Joan O’Mahony said her focus in recent years had been on helping colleagues recognise the signs of domestic violence, which is not something learnt in university.

Domestic violence is now recognised as a continuum under the new law, rather than a single act at a point in time, she said.

That continuum is something practitioners must engage with in a more real way, she continued.

Perspective on any action in a relationship

“It is always difficult for a solicitor to keep the parameters of their relationship with their client in balance,” Joan O’Mahony.

“We are not counsellors. We recommend clients onwards to counsellors but we only do that if we recognise what the signs are of such coercive control,” she said.

Joan O’Mahony said that client reluctance to seek safety or barring orders, as it might raise conflict levels, skews any empirical evidence of the level of abuse in relationships.

“We need a more realistic assessment of what’s been going on in the relationship before a separation or divorce is granted,” she said.

Contact and access arrangements after separations are the trigger points for more manipulation and abuse, O’Mahony said.