Sir, – Mary Carolan’s article concerning the increase in complex domestic-related matters before the District Court is timely (“‘I can’t live like this’: Desperate parents ask courts to protect them from aggressive adult children”, News, March 23rd).
The need to prioritise domestic violence applications has seen a recent and long-overdue concentration of resources in that area – and still the increase in judicial capacity is only barely meeting our increasing population and the demand for court services.
But while the increase in judicial capacity is welcomed, all of the progress made is likely to be soon undone. Why? Because of what is proposed by the Family Courts Bill 2022. Practitioners (solicitors and barristers) who work in family law across the country are simply bewildered by the proposal from Government to add judicial separations, divorces and cohabitation cases to the workload of the District Court, via the Bill.
The District Court is simply not suited to hearing and determining such cases; cases of separation, divorce and cohabitation are invariably complex and multifaceted and can often require many hours to complete. The District Court is not built or designed to do this work.
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The Bill also proposes an entirely arbitrary monetary distinction between those cases which will begin in the District Court and those that will remain in the Circuit Family Court. It is blindingly obvious that this arbitrary distinction (based on €1 million land value) will create a two-tier family law justice systems which discriminates on the basis of socio-economic and geographical circumstances. People in Dublin and surrounding counties will be more likely to have their cases in the Circuit Family Court – where greater time and attention will be given to their case than will be possible in the District Court – than those living elsewhere.
There is no public clamour for the proposed change of jurisdiction. There is a clamour for a better-resourced family justice system, which will see these most important cases resolved in a calm, considered manner, where plenty of time is allowed to vulnerable parties resolve issues such as the future welfare of their children, future accommodation needs, the allocation of their resources, their income and pension. The Circuit Court already possess the mechanisms and capacity to undertake this.
Countless submissions have been made to Government by the stakeholders (Bar Council, Law Society, Family Lawyers Association, and others) on behalf of their clients about the folly of this proposal – most especially focusing on the inescapable fact that transferring such matters to the District Court will impinge upon its already limited capacity to deal with crime, road traffic, maintenance, domestic violence and, not least, public and private law child-related matters.
It is vital for every person in the State who might be going through a relationship breakdown, in terms of their families and most especially for their children, that the proposal to alter the current jurisdictions for judicial separation and divorce is revisited before it is enacted into law. – Yours, etc,
PAUL McCARTHY, SC
Chair,
Family Lawyers Association,
Dublin 7.