Fathers' rights movement in the UK
Encyclopedia
The fathers' rights
movement in the UK consists of a number of diverse pressure groups, ranging from charities (whose activities are regulated by the Charity Commission
) and self-help
groups to civil disobedience
activists, who started to obtain wide publicity in 2003. The movement's origin can be traced to 1974 when Families Need Fathers (FNF) was founded. At the local level, many activists spend much time providing support for newly separated fathers, most of whom are highly distraught. Although some have been accused of being sexist by some commentators, these groups also campaign for better treatment for excluded mothers, women in second marriages, other stepparents and grandparents - all of whom suffer discrimination in respect of contact with their (grand) child(ren).
Whilst for a considerable time father's rights groups were largely ignored by the mainstream media and by governments for a number of reasons, the advent of Fathers 4 Justice in 2003 brought the cause into the mainstream media for the first time, and new legislation is being brought in the UK as a result in 2005. Another leading group Families Need Fathers is recognised as source of help by The Department of Constitutional Affairs, and regularly provides evidence to parliamentary sub-committees, resulting on one senior Family Court judge indicating that it was a key player in the debate about on-going contact and joint residence http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmconst/uc1247-i/uc124702.htm.
Activists within the movement seek to restructure family law
, arguing that children benefit from being raised by both parents, and that children should thus be allowed to interact with both parents on a regular basis as of right. The family justice system in England and Wales, according to a committee of Members of Parliament on 2 March 2005, gives separated and divorced fathers a raw deal and does not give enough consideration to preserving the relationship between the father and the child http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1428230,00.html.
The Child Support Act in the UK aims to ensure that absent parents pay towards the support of their children. The payment amount is inversely proportional to the time that the child spends with the so-called absent parent. If a parent puts acceptable reasons to a court for the other parent's involvement to be restricted, then the restricted parent has to pay more. Many judgements have been criticised for not allowing fathers to be as involved as they would like to be or at all, and the courts criticised for failing to enforce their orders. Pressure from the fathers' movement has influenced the UK Government, which published a draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill in February 2005 http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childrensneeds. This aims to widen judges' powers in dealing with parents who obstruct their ex-partner from seeing their children.
founded in 1974 well known for its self-help work. It does not regard itself as a fathers' rights organisation, however, pointing out that its primary focus is on the children's rights to have a meatningful relationship with their dad. FNF is regarded by senior family court judges as taking a commonsense approach to bringing about change in the family law system in the UK. It participates in government consultations and working group
s. FNF has about 3000 members and over 10,000 former members. FNF has been lobbying the UK Parliament for over 30 years to give greater recognition to the role of fathers in broken families. Its achievements in bringing about policy changes have been modest and it has failed to publicise them. For example, FNF has been credited with having:
Fathers 4 Justice
(F4J) takes a proactive approach to generating awareness of fathers' issues. It generates considerable publicity through planned actions e.g. throwing purple
(its campaign colour) flour at the Prime Minister
, and Batman
landing on Buckingham Palace
. It organises stylish and colourful dress-up demonstrations as part of its campaign of direct action
. Their antics have been described as totally irresponsible and yet the attendant publicity, coordinated by Matt O'Connor
, has managed to inform the British public of an issue that others had failed to do hitherto.
Equal Rights For Absent Parents was recently set up by a former absent parent John Carlsson whose main goal is to provide indisputable evidence relating to the inequality that exists in today’s society and legal system. It is currently undergoing charitable status and adds a third dimension to the two aforementioned organisations. Indisputable evidence is the organisations main goal and is currently in discussions with renown specialists to validate its findings.
to fathers when their name appears on a child's birth certificate
. Tony Coe
has been an articulate proponent of a singular message, and appeared in 2004 on a TV programme with Bob Geldof
and Jim Parton
, the editor of the FNF newsletter. The 2005 Children and Contact Bill addresses one of the expressed concerns of Fathers For Justice. If remains to be seen in the UK whether providing evidence to Select Committees is a more effective tactic than performing publicity stunts.
Government ministers for a long time denied that there is a problem until 2004. Lord Filkinhttp://www.politicallinks.co.uk/politics2/biog/LD_Biogs/bio.asp?id=2441, the family justice minister announced at the beginning of April 2004 that there will be a green paper
outlining proposals intended to improve the methods used to settle child residence disputes http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1184913,00.html. This paper, Parental Separation: Children’s Needs and Parents’ Responsibilities http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childrensneeds/docs/DfesChildrensNeeds.pdf is seen by activists to not seriously address the fundamental issues, particularly the courts' generation of inter-parental conflict by making it necessary to have adversarial proceedings.
In the Queen's Speech at the State Opening of Parliament
on 27 November 2004, Her Majesty said http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4034947.stm:
F4J achieved its main objective of bringing to the issues to the public's attention, creating fear in men who have not yet faced the dilemmas of divorce that their relationship with their children could be devastated if they fell out with their partners. By having generated this fear, campaigners are optimistic that governments must now be seen to be actually doing something that will palliate public concerns and fears. However there is also a "wait and see" mentality being applied within Government departments, as it is the judiciary, by using recent precedents, who have the greatest power to bring about change. The success of the charity, FNF, for instance, in advising members to act as a litigant in person and to work towards shared residency
court orders, has resulted in changing judicial attitudes. It is capitalising on that success and has spawned an industry of providing information and help to fathers (and, increasingly, mothers http://purplehearts.f4jnorthwest.co.uk/) facing family break-own.
The UK Labour Party has this to say on the issue in its 2005 Election Manifesto:
concerned.
There are issues to do with the non-enforcement of Contact Orders - orders made by family court judges which oblige the so-called resident recalcitrant parent (usually the mother) to let the children spend some time with their dad. Such orders are not required if the mother is cooperative about letting the children see their dad, but generally speaking no action is taken if such an order is made and the mother is uncooperative.
The main issue, however, is to do with the adversarial nature of the system, in which most parents are dissatisfied, according to a UK government report published in 2004, and the only winners are lawyers.
Also justified on the grounds of administrative convenience is the UK system whereby child benefit is only payable to one parent, even when both separated parents provide substantial portions of the childcare. In a Court of Appeal judgment in February 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1403513,00.html, in a landmark (HOCKENJOS v. SOS JGT) ruling, Lord Justice Ward declared "To allow a father nothing for the maintenance of the child when he shares care virtually equally is so unfair that no reasonable secretary of state should countenance it." He said that the practice of making just one parent responsible for a child under the benefits system was "grotesque... It is degrading to fathers who actually - and lovingly - tend to their children. A law so framed is so far removed from reality that it brings the law into disrepute and justifiably fuels the passions of protesting fathers."
There was a debate on the topic of Family Justice on 13 December 2004 in the House of Commons
. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/cm041213/debtext/41213-22.htm#41213-22_head0. The motion:
It was defeated by with 168 Ayes and 283 Noes voted by MPs.
They reported in March 2002 in a document called "Making Contact Work".
It called for "urgent reform". It was a sort of Hutton Inquiry of family law reform. It is well known that Wall LJ was very vexed that nothing happened for a long time.
The Facilitation and Enforcement stakeholder group was however created to discuss the CASC report. Stakeholders included a couple of district judges, a solicitor, a barrister, CAFCASS, Women's Aid
, various academics, mediators...
The report went to Minister Margaret Hodge
in June 2003 and the response was a Green Paper in 2004.
CASC, and the stakeholder Group could be called Prong No. 1 of reform, which was started off by the politicians, after pressure from several directions, including from the campaigning charity FNF.
The impression formed by many involved at the time was that the government had no true appetite for reform, and hoped that the problem would just go away.
have had remarkable success in bringing the whole subject to the nation's attention at a bottom-up grass-roots level, (rather than at the top-down political level of the CASC group, and the stakeholder group.)
However, the true size of Fathers 4 Justice is a matter of opinion. While the organization claims to have over 25,000 members in 5 countries, its main base of operations is the UK and there appear to be fewer than 20 actual members who conduct regular civil disobedience actions - namely Jason Hatch and Jolly Stansby.
The success of their visible campaign remains to be seen. While they are a fixture in the UK, they have yet to pull off a successful action in the United States or in Canada. The Canadian branch of Fathers 4 Justice has existed for 15 months and has yet to make national headlines.
. He has run two conferences about early interventions in 2001 and 2002. These were attended by high ranking members of the judiciary, including from overseas, where schemes that promote retaining both parents' involvement in childcare, but leave the courts as last resort, have been very successful. Notably in Florida
and California
.
He has a strong alliance, made up of senior members of the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA), Family Law Bar Association (FLBA), Hamish Cameron the child psychiatrist, Fathers Direct
and the campaigning charity Families Need Fathers. Ex-president of the UK Family Division of the courts Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has said she supports this plan.
Observers indicate that there is currently a tug-of-war between Oliver Cyriax's early interventions pilot project — which would be run by PESF (Parenting and Education Support Forum) in a low key way, probably at Wells Street (the family court in central London) — and another plan, created by the civil servants.
The worry about the civil servants is that they are not expert in family matters at all, and their pilot plan might fail. The civil servant behind it, Bruce Clark, comes from a child protection background. He is said to be the man who drew up the discredited Munchausen's guidelines, and not a natural champion of fathers rights' that campaigners demand, in particular to ensure that children will have adequate parenting time
with their fathers.
Fathers' rights campaigners urgently want an "Early Interventions Pilot Plan" to test and develop compulsory mediation and parenting plans, etc. backed up by a strict enforcement regime, "Facilitation and Enforcement" as the stakeholder group was called.
It is not clear who will win the tug-of-war http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1173919,00.html, and campaigners argue that both initiatives are worthwhile. Duncan Fisher of Fathers Direct says Oliver Cyriax's PESF scheme could start immediately, although it is known that civil servants and politicians are prone to call for numbers of rounds of committee meetings and consultations, sometimes indefinitely.
It is arguable that the recent Consultation Paper issued by CAFCASS and entitled Every Day Matters is a recognition of the hurt and resentment caused by the existing Family Law system, and is a call for radical change, particularly by the early adoption of Shared Residence in the vast majority of cases. This is clear from Section 36 on page 21.
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childrensneeds/ in response to the two year old Making Contact Work document, and the more recent Child Contact Survey http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childcontactsurvey/. Only the year before, the Government had been indicating that no legislative changes in this area were planned, so this is a turnaround whose timing is generally felt to be the result of the efforts of fathers' rights activists. The Women's Aid
response to this paper http://www.womensaid.org.uk/policy&consultations/consultationresponses/Parental_separation_full_response.htm contains the following: We believe that legislation is still required to create a rebuttable presumption in family proceedings legislation that child contact is not awarded unless and until it can be shown to be safe, and that this should be done through a mandatory risk assessment process. The response does not make clear whether this provision is intended to apply to both parents involved in a child residence dispute.
. The Opposition stance is that such a policy is against the existing Children Act.
The Liberal Democrats, the third major UK political party, has framed the issue in terms of domestic violence, but yet has to communicate its ideas widely.
And, there is considerable confusion surrounding the issue of "safety" by politicians in the context that is used to deny parental access, particularly as it is a fact that most children's injuries occur in the living room at home, according to statistics published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), and fewer malicious injuries to children are done by fathers than by mothers, according to an NSPCC
report in 2000 called Child Maltreatment in the United Kingdom: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/pubs/nl2001/winter2.html, which stated that "most violence occurred at home (78 per cent) with mothers being primarily responsible in 49 per cent of cases and fathers in 40 per cent of cases".
on Tuesday 9 November 2004.
Lord Justice Wall: A few years ago I went to address the annual general meeting of Families Need Fathers and I was actually very impressed by the strength of their feelings and their emotions. The message I gave them - and I was not the only one doing it - was that the way to succeed, the way to get into the system, is not to sloganise but actually to get on the committees, get in with government where there is lots going on and people want to consult you, and respond to Making Contact Work. We had an excellent response from Families Need Fathers, part of which we incorporated, and I think Families Need Fathers has become a key player in the debate about on-going contact and joint residence. We make progress with rational argument; we do not make progress by sloganising.
Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss: I cannot meet Fathers4Justice because they are not being sensible. As long as they throw condoms with purple powder and send a double-decker bus with a loudspeaker outside my private house in the West Country there is no point in talking to them; they are not going to talk, they are going to tell me.
Those present included Rt Hon Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss DBE, Rt Hon Lord Justice Wall and Hon Mr Justice Munby, His Honour Judge Meston QC, District Judge Michael Walker and District Judge Nicholas Crichton.
wrote:
has seen argument about parental alienation
and parental alienation syndrome
as is illustrated by comments the following cases:
Lady Justice Hale (in Re K (Contact: Psychiatric Report) [1995] 2 FLR 432) stated:
Since The Children Act requires that the views of the child need to be made known to the court, fathers' rights campaigners claim that the mother sometimes alienates a child against his or her father and that this then supports the mother's case in court to banish the father. Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the Family division, (the top UK family court judge) stated (in Re L, V, M, H (Contact: Domestic Violence) [2002] 2 FLR 334 at 351):
, organizer of the Live Aid and the Live 8
projects, has become involved in the British fathers' rights movement.http://www.fathers.ca/bob_geldof.htm Geldof claims to be an iconoclast
, calling his arguments rants which express his feelings towards British family law, as well as towards issues of a more personal matter.
Bob Geldof, and others, argue that without substantial changes, the application of current British custody law will lead to a generation of feral children. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1958237.stm. Geldof has written:
Fathers' rights campaigners question the assumption that it can ever be legitimate for the state to collude in disrupting a loving and natural relationship between a father and his children. Bob Geldof
has written evocatively on this subject: I cannot even say the words. A huge emptiness would well in my stomach, a deep loathing for those who would deign to tell me they would ALLOW me ACCESS to my children — those I loved above all, those I created, those who gave meaning to everything I did, those that were the very best of us two and the absolute physical manifestation of our once blinding love. Who the fuck are they that they should ALLOW anything? REASONABLE CONTACT!!! Is the law mad? Am I a criminal? An ABSENT parent. A RESIDENT/NON-RESIDENT parent. This Lawspeak which you all speak so fluently, so unthinkingly, so hurtfully, must go.
including:
Fathers' rights
The fathers' rights movement is a movement whose members are primarily interested in issues related to family law, including child custody and child support that affect fathers and their children. Many of its members are fathers who desire to share the parenting of their children equally with their...
movement in the UK consists of a number of diverse pressure groups, ranging from charities (whose activities are regulated by the Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
) and self-help
Self-help
Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...
groups to civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
activists, who started to obtain wide publicity in 2003. The movement's origin can be traced to 1974 when Families Need Fathers (FNF) was founded. At the local level, many activists spend much time providing support for newly separated fathers, most of whom are highly distraught. Although some have been accused of being sexist by some commentators, these groups also campaign for better treatment for excluded mothers, women in second marriages, other stepparents and grandparents - all of whom suffer discrimination in respect of contact with their (grand) child(ren).
Whilst for a considerable time father's rights groups were largely ignored by the mainstream media and by governments for a number of reasons, the advent of Fathers 4 Justice in 2003 brought the cause into the mainstream media for the first time, and new legislation is being brought in the UK as a result in 2005. Another leading group Families Need Fathers is recognised as source of help by The Department of Constitutional Affairs, and regularly provides evidence to parliamentary sub-committees, resulting on one senior Family Court judge indicating that it was a key player in the debate about on-going contact and joint residence http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmconst/uc1247-i/uc124702.htm.
Activists within the movement seek to restructure family law
Family law
Family law is an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including:*the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships;...
, arguing that children benefit from being raised by both parents, and that children should thus be allowed to interact with both parents on a regular basis as of right. The family justice system in England and Wales, according to a committee of Members of Parliament on 2 March 2005, gives separated and divorced fathers a raw deal and does not give enough consideration to preserving the relationship between the father and the child http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1428230,00.html.
The Child Support Act in the UK aims to ensure that absent parents pay towards the support of their children. The payment amount is inversely proportional to the time that the child spends with the so-called absent parent. If a parent puts acceptable reasons to a court for the other parent's involvement to be restricted, then the restricted parent has to pay more. Many judgements have been criticised for not allowing fathers to be as involved as they would like to be or at all, and the courts criticised for failing to enforce their orders. Pressure from the fathers' movement has influenced the UK Government, which published a draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill in February 2005 http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childrensneeds. This aims to widen judges' powers in dealing with parents who obstruct their ex-partner from seeing their children.
Fathers rights issues
There are a number of issues which drive the participants in the fathers' rights movement:- ResidenceResidence in English lawResidence in English law can refer to*Family law*Immigration law*Taxation law:See also*Residence in English family law....
with the children is rarely given to the fatherFatherA father, Pop, Dad, or Papa, is defined as a male parent of any type of offspring. The adjective "paternal" refers to father, parallel to "maternal" for mother...
after divorceDivorceDivorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
or separationLegal separationLegal separation is a legal process by which a married couple may formalize a de facto separation while remaining legally married. A legal separation is granted in the form of a court order, which can be in the form of a legally binding consent decree...
. - Shared residenceShared residency in English lawShared residence, or joint residence, refers to the situation where the child of parents who have divorced or separated reside with each parent at different times, and each parent has equal status in law. In English family law s8 Children Act 1989 defines a residence order as one "...settling the...
(and shared parentingShared parentingShared parenting refers to a collaborative arrangement in child custody or divorce determinations in which the care of the children is equal or more than substantially shared between the biological parents.- Nature and History :...
) is seldom used as an expedient to resolve family child residency disputes, frequently resulting in fathers being marginalised and unable to perform effectively in their capacity as fathers. - When contact is denied, the courts frequently do not enforce their own orders.
- Whereas mothers get parental responsibilityParental responsibility (access and custody)In the nations of the European Union and elsewhere, parental responsibility refers to the rights and privileges which underpin the relationship between a child and either of the child's parents or those adults who have a significant role in the child's life...
automatically, fathers only do so if they were married to the mother or signed the birth certificate. - Fathers are obliged to pay means tested child supportChild supportIn family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
irrespective of whether they are allowed to see their children, and with no account taken of the mother's household's income. - Parental leaveParental leaveParental leave is an employee benefit that provides paid or unpaid time off work to care for a child or make arrangements for the child's welfare. Often, the term parental leave includes maternity, paternity, and adoption leave...
favours mothers, paternity leave is substantially less than maternity leave - Contact centre places are hard to obtain because of inadequate funding and at the same time their use is frequently demanded unreasonably - resulting in children being unnecessarily deprived of the love and care of their non-resident parent.
- When a father makes representations in court to see his child when this is being obstructed by the mother, adversarial court proceedings against the mother are inevitably the cause of further conflict. If a court can determine that a child should see its father, this could be done without reference to the mother, who may be deemed irrelevant to the proceedings in cases of implacable hostilityImplacable hostilityImplacable hostility arises after separation or divorce and denotes the attitude shown by one parent to another in denying access to, or contact with, their child...
.
Leading groups
Families Need Fathers (FNF) is a registered charityCharitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
founded in 1974 well known for its self-help work. It does not regard itself as a fathers' rights organisation, however, pointing out that its primary focus is on the children's rights to have a meatningful relationship with their dad. FNF is regarded by senior family court judges as taking a commonsense approach to bringing about change in the family law system in the UK. It participates in government consultations and working group
Working group
A working group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers working on new research activities that would be difficult to develop under traditional funding mechanisms . The lifespan of the WG can last anywhere between a few months and several years...
s. FNF has about 3000 members and over 10,000 former members. FNF has been lobbying the UK Parliament for over 30 years to give greater recognition to the role of fathers in broken families. Its achievements in bringing about policy changes have been modest and it has failed to publicise them. For example, FNF has been credited with having:
- brought about recognition of paternity for unmarried fathers who have signed the birth certificate;
- substituted the neutral term "non-resident parent" for the lamentable term "absent parent" in the Child Support regulations;
- reduced the threshold to 52 overnight stays per year when a father is entitled to take account of the costs of looking after his visiting child.
Fathers 4 Justice
Fathers 4 Justice
Fathers 4 Justice began as a fathers’ rights organisation in the United Kingdom. It became prominent and frequently discussed in the media following a series of high-visibility stunts and protests often in costume. It was temporarily disbanded in January 2006, following allegations of a plot by...
(F4J) takes a proactive approach to generating awareness of fathers' issues. It generates considerable publicity through planned actions e.g. throwing purple
Purple
Purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue, and is classified as a secondary color as the colors are required to create the shade....
(its campaign colour) flour at the Prime Minister
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, and Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
landing on Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality...
. It organises stylish and colourful dress-up demonstrations as part of its campaign of direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
. Their antics have been described as totally irresponsible and yet the attendant publicity, coordinated by Matt O'Connor
Matt O'Connor
Matt O'Connor is the founder of the fathers' rights group Fathers 4 Justice in the UK. Denied access to his children by the Family Courts, O'Connor created Fathers 4 Justice to demand reform of the family courts and government policy on parental access.In his GQ magazine feature on O'Connor in...
, has managed to inform the British public of an issue that others had failed to do hitherto.
Equal Rights For Absent Parents was recently set up by a former absent parent John Carlsson whose main goal is to provide indisputable evidence relating to the inequality that exists in today’s society and legal system. It is currently undergoing charitable status and adds a third dimension to the two aforementioned organisations. Indisputable evidence is the organisations main goal and is currently in discussions with renown specialists to validate its findings.
Political lobbying
Father's rights groups in the UK were largely ineffective at political lobbying up until recently. Effective lobbyists, however, have included Families Need Fathers, whose ideas were included in the Adoption and Children Act 2002 regarding the automatic granting of parental responsibilityParental responsibility (access and custody)
In the nations of the European Union and elsewhere, parental responsibility refers to the rights and privileges which underpin the relationship between a child and either of the child's parents or those adults who have a significant role in the child's life...
to fathers when their name appears on a child's birth certificate
Birth certificate
A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a child. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuing registration of that birth...
. Tony Coe
Tony Coe
Anthony George Coe is a composer and jazz musician who plays clarinet, bass clarinet, and tenor saxophone.Coe began his performing career playing with Humphrey Lyttelton's band from 1957 to 1962...
has been an articulate proponent of a singular message, and appeared in 2004 on a TV programme with Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...
and Jim Parton
Jim Parton
Jim Parton is the author of several books, including Unreasonable Behaviour, The Buck Stops Here and Playing Footsie. He also wrote a book with the pop star Robbie Williams, entitled 'Let Me Entertain You.'...
, the editor of the FNF newsletter. The 2005 Children and Contact Bill addresses one of the expressed concerns of Fathers For Justice. If remains to be seen in the UK whether providing evidence to Select Committees is a more effective tactic than performing publicity stunts.
Government ministers for a long time denied that there is a problem until 2004. Lord Filkinhttp://www.politicallinks.co.uk/politics2/biog/LD_Biogs/bio.asp?id=2441, the family justice minister announced at the beginning of April 2004 that there will be a green paper
Green paper
In the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland and the United States a green paper is a tentative government report of a proposal without any commitment to action; the first step in changing the law...
outlining proposals intended to improve the methods used to settle child residence disputes http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1184913,00.html. This paper, Parental Separation: Children’s Needs and Parents’ Responsibilities http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childrensneeds/docs/DfesChildrensNeeds.pdf is seen by activists to not seriously address the fundamental issues, particularly the courts' generation of inter-parental conflict by making it necessary to have adversarial proceedings.
In the Queen's Speech at the State Opening of Parliament
State Opening of Parliament
In the United Kingdom, the State Opening of Parliament is an annual event that marks the commencement of a session of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is held in the House of Lords Chamber, usually in November or December or, in a general election year, when the new Parliament first assembles...
on 27 November 2004, Her Majesty said http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4034947.stm:
- My Government believes that the welfare of children is paramount. Draft legislation will be published to safeguard the welfare of children in circumstances of parental separation and inter-country adoption.
F4J achieved its main objective of bringing to the issues to the public's attention, creating fear in men who have not yet faced the dilemmas of divorce that their relationship with their children could be devastated if they fell out with their partners. By having generated this fear, campaigners are optimistic that governments must now be seen to be actually doing something that will palliate public concerns and fears. However there is also a "wait and see" mentality being applied within Government departments, as it is the judiciary, by using recent precedents, who have the greatest power to bring about change. The success of the charity, FNF, for instance, in advising members to act as a litigant in person and to work towards shared residency
Shared residency in English law
Shared residence, or joint residence, refers to the situation where the child of parents who have divorced or separated reside with each parent at different times, and each parent has equal status in law. In English family law s8 Children Act 1989 defines a residence order as one "...settling the...
court orders, has resulted in changing judicial attitudes. It is capitalising on that success and has spawned an industry of providing information and help to fathers (and, increasingly, mothers http://purplehearts.f4jnorthwest.co.uk/) facing family break-own.
The UK Labour Party has this to say on the issue in its 2005 Election Manifesto:
- For those parents who do separate or divorce, both have a responsibility for a meaningful relationship with their children where that is safe. We are introducing reforms to minimise conflict and encourage conciliation by greater and early use of mediation. We stand by the principle that absent parents should make a fair contribution to the cost of the upkeep of their children, and we are committed to tackling the backlog of Child Support Agency claims as efficiently and fairly as possible. We also need to ensure court orders on accessContact (law)In family law, contact is one of the general terms which denotes the level of contact a parent or other significant person in a child's life can have with that child...
are enforced according to the best interests of the childBest interestsBest interests or best interests of the child is the doctrine used by most courts to determine a wide range of issues relating to the well-being of children. The most important of these issues concern questions that arise upon the divorce or separation of the children's parents...
, which ideally gives both parents an important role.
Legal issues
The new system in the UK whereby the amount of child support that, in the vast majority of cases, the father pays, is acknowledged to be less fair than the old because it has ceased to take into account the other household's income. This is justified on the grounds that it saves administrative cost for the government agencyChild Support Agency
The Child Support Agency is a delivery arm of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission in Great Britain and the Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland...
concerned.
There are issues to do with the non-enforcement of Contact Orders - orders made by family court judges which oblige the so-called resident recalcitrant parent (usually the mother) to let the children spend some time with their dad. Such orders are not required if the mother is cooperative about letting the children see their dad, but generally speaking no action is taken if such an order is made and the mother is uncooperative.
The main issue, however, is to do with the adversarial nature of the system, in which most parents are dissatisfied, according to a UK government report published in 2004, and the only winners are lawyers.
Also justified on the grounds of administrative convenience is the UK system whereby child benefit is only payable to one parent, even when both separated parents provide substantial portions of the childcare. In a Court of Appeal judgment in February 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1403513,00.html, in a landmark (HOCKENJOS v. SOS JGT) ruling, Lord Justice Ward declared "To allow a father nothing for the maintenance of the child when he shares care virtually equally is so unfair that no reasonable secretary of state should countenance it." He said that the practice of making just one parent responsible for a child under the benefits system was "grotesque... It is degrading to fathers who actually - and lovingly - tend to their children. A law so framed is so far removed from reality that it brings the law into disrepute and justifiably fuels the passions of protesting fathers."
Recent reform
The publication of the Green Paper together with the item in the Queen's Speech may not deliver much immediately, but if it can be established early on in the process which aspects of any proposed new legislation will become retrospective then there is opportunity for it to start having an immediate social impact.There was a debate on the topic of Family Justice on 13 December 2004 in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/cm041213/debtext/41213-22.htm#41213-22_head0. The motion:
- That this House agrees that on the separation of parents, priority should be given to the interests of the children; believes that it is in the best interests of all children for both parents to be fully involved in their upbringing and hence that separated parents should each have a legal presumption of reasonable contact with their children, except where a child's safety would be at risk, so that children are able to benefit from being parented by both their parents, as well as from contact with any grandparents and extended family members able and willing to play a role in their upbringing; regrets the Government's opposition to such a legal presumption, which will lead to yet more children being denied access to both their parents and their extended families; views with concern the Government's failure to implement the Early Intervention Project; and calls on the Government to replace the legal term 'contact' with 'parenting time', to introduce a legal presumption of co-parenting and to introduce early intervention in parental separation, with court-backed mediation and guidelines on parenting-time.
It was defeated by with 168 Ayes and 283 Noes voted by MPs.
Making Contact Work
In 2001 Mr Justice Wall (now Lord Justice) chaired a Children Act Sub-Committee (known as CASC).They reported in March 2002 in a document called "Making Contact Work".
It called for "urgent reform". It was a sort of Hutton Inquiry of family law reform. It is well known that Wall LJ was very vexed that nothing happened for a long time.
The Facilitation and Enforcement stakeholder group was however created to discuss the CASC report. Stakeholders included a couple of district judges, a solicitor, a barrister, CAFCASS, Women's Aid
Women's Aid
Women's Aid is a group of feminist charities across the United Kingdom. There are four main Women's Aid Federations, one for each country. Its aim is to end domestic violence against women and children...
, various academics, mediators...
The report went to Minister Margaret Hodge
Margaret Hodge
Margaret Hodge MBE MP, also known as Lady Hodge by virtue of her husband's knighthood, is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Barking since 1994. She was the first Minister for Children in 2003 and was Minister of State for Culture and Tourism at the Department...
in June 2003 and the response was a Green Paper in 2004.
CASC, and the stakeholder Group could be called Prong No. 1 of reform, which was started off by the politicians, after pressure from several directions, including from the campaigning charity FNF.
The impression formed by many involved at the time was that the government had no true appetite for reform, and hoped that the problem would just go away.
Fathers 4 Justice
Fathers 4 JusticeFathers 4 Justice
Fathers 4 Justice began as a fathers’ rights organisation in the United Kingdom. It became prominent and frequently discussed in the media following a series of high-visibility stunts and protests often in costume. It was temporarily disbanded in January 2006, following allegations of a plot by...
have had remarkable success in bringing the whole subject to the nation's attention at a bottom-up grass-roots level, (rather than at the top-down political level of the CASC group, and the stakeholder group.)
However, the true size of Fathers 4 Justice is a matter of opinion. While the organization claims to have over 25,000 members in 5 countries, its main base of operations is the UK and there appear to be fewer than 20 actual members who conduct regular civil disobedience actions - namely Jason Hatch and Jolly Stansby.
The success of their visible campaign remains to be seen. While they are a fixture in the UK, they have yet to pull off a successful action in the United States or in Canada. The Canadian branch of Fathers 4 Justice has existed for 15 months and has yet to make national headlines.
Early intervention
This is the work of Oliver CyriaxOliver Cyriax
Oliver Cyriax is a Cambridge University law graduate who became an author of successful books in subjects as diverse as medicine and crime. He is a solicitor. Following his own experiences in the family courts he became an active campaigner to reform the Court Welfare Officer system.-External links:*...
. He has run two conferences about early interventions in 2001 and 2002. These were attended by high ranking members of the judiciary, including from overseas, where schemes that promote retaining both parents' involvement in childcare, but leave the courts as last resort, have been very successful. Notably in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
He has a strong alliance, made up of senior members of the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA), Family Law Bar Association (FLBA), Hamish Cameron the child psychiatrist, Fathers Direct
Fathers Direct
The Fatherhood Institute is the UK's national fatherhood think tank. It a charity is part funded by its own income and part government-sponsored founded in 1999 as Fathers Direct by professionals with expertise in social work, family policy, business development and communications.David...
and the campaigning charity Families Need Fathers. Ex-president of the UK Family Division of the courts Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has said she supports this plan.
Observers indicate that there is currently a tug-of-war between Oliver Cyriax's early interventions pilot project — which would be run by PESF (Parenting and Education Support Forum) in a low key way, probably at Wells Street (the family court in central London) — and another plan, created by the civil servants.
The worry about the civil servants is that they are not expert in family matters at all, and their pilot plan might fail. The civil servant behind it, Bruce Clark, comes from a child protection background. He is said to be the man who drew up the discredited Munchausen's guidelines, and not a natural champion of fathers rights' that campaigners demand, in particular to ensure that children will have adequate parenting time
Parenting time
Parenting time is the amount of time each parent spends with their children when parents separate. Disagreements about how to measure it and how to divide it often cause controversy between the parents.- United Kingdom :...
with their fathers.
Fathers' rights campaigners urgently want an "Early Interventions Pilot Plan" to test and develop compulsory mediation and parenting plans, etc. backed up by a strict enforcement regime, "Facilitation and Enforcement" as the stakeholder group was called.
It is not clear who will win the tug-of-war http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1173919,00.html, and campaigners argue that both initiatives are worthwhile. Duncan Fisher of Fathers Direct says Oliver Cyriax's PESF scheme could start immediately, although it is known that civil servants and politicians are prone to call for numbers of rounds of committee meetings and consultations, sometimes indefinitely.
Every Day Matters
It is arguable that the recent Consultation Paper issued by CAFCASS and entitled Every Day Matters is a recognition of the hurt and resentment caused by the existing Family Law system, and is a call for radical change, particularly by the early adoption of Shared Residence in the vast majority of cases. This is clear from Section 36 on page 21.
Green Paper 2004
In July 2004 the UK Government published a Green PaperGreen paper
In the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland and the United States a green paper is a tentative government report of a proposal without any commitment to action; the first step in changing the law...
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childrensneeds/ in response to the two year old Making Contact Work document, and the more recent Child Contact Survey http://www.dfes.gov.uk/childcontactsurvey/. Only the year before, the Government had been indicating that no legislative changes in this area were planned, so this is a turnaround whose timing is generally felt to be the result of the efforts of fathers' rights activists. The Women's Aid
Women's Aid
Women's Aid is a group of feminist charities across the United Kingdom. There are four main Women's Aid Federations, one for each country. Its aim is to end domestic violence against women and children...
response to this paper http://www.womensaid.org.uk/policy&consultations/consultationresponses/Parental_separation_full_response.htm contains the following: We believe that legislation is still required to create a rebuttable presumption in family proceedings legislation that child contact is not awarded unless and until it can be shown to be safe, and that this should be done through a mandatory risk assessment process. The response does not make clear whether this provision is intended to apply to both parents involved in a child residence dispute.
Party Politics
At the same time, the Conservative Party has started indicating that it believes fundamental changes in the law are required http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3883927.stm. The Labour Party supports the stance taken by CAFCASS's trade union NAPONapo
Napo or NAPO may refer to*Napo County, in Guangxi, China*Napo District, in Maynas, Peru*Napo River, Ecuador*Napo Province, Ecuador*National Association of Probation Officers*National Association of Professional Organizers...
. The Opposition stance is that such a policy is against the existing Children Act.
The Liberal Democrats, the third major UK political party, has framed the issue in terms of domestic violence, but yet has to communicate its ideas widely.
"Safety"
One thesis is that children should only remain resident with one parent if it is considered safe to do so; otherwise it is generally better to have both parents involved in bringing up their children. Whilst this might seem to be reasonable, it is unfortunately turned around by some influential politicians to mean that the children should remain exclusively under the control of the mother unless the father can prove that he is "safe", i.e. that he has not had accusations of domestic violence levelled against him. If he has, then he is considered "unsafe" until a finding of fact can be made in his favour, i.e. that the allegations were unfounded.And, there is considerable confusion surrounding the issue of "safety" by politicians in the context that is used to deny parental access, particularly as it is a fact that most children's injuries occur in the living room at home, according to statistics published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), and fewer malicious injuries to children are done by fathers than by mothers, according to an NSPCC
NSPCC
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is a United Kingdom charity campaigning and working in child protection.-History:...
report in 2000 called Child Maltreatment in the United Kingdom: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/pubs/nl2001/winter2.html, which stated that "most violence occurred at home (78 per cent) with mothers being primarily responsible in 49 per cent of cases and fathers in 40 per cent of cases".
Constitutional Affairs Committee
The government in 2004 set up a select committee to look into Family Law in the UK. In relation to the way in which the fathers' rights campaign has been received, the following interchange took place during the taking of oral evidence on Family Justice: The Operation of The Family Courts http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmconst/uc1247-i/uc124702.htm at the House of CommonsBritish House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
on Tuesday 9 November 2004.
Lord Justice Wall: A few years ago I went to address the annual general meeting of Families Need Fathers and I was actually very impressed by the strength of their feelings and their emotions. The message I gave them - and I was not the only one doing it - was that the way to succeed, the way to get into the system, is not to sloganise but actually to get on the committees, get in with government where there is lots going on and people want to consult you, and respond to Making Contact Work. We had an excellent response from Families Need Fathers, part of which we incorporated, and I think Families Need Fathers has become a key player in the debate about on-going contact and joint residence. We make progress with rational argument; we do not make progress by sloganising.
Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss: I cannot meet Fathers4Justice because they are not being sensible. As long as they throw condoms with purple powder and send a double-decker bus with a loudspeaker outside my private house in the West Country there is no point in talking to them; they are not going to talk, they are going to tell me.
Those present included Rt Hon Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss DBE, Rt Hon Lord Justice Wall and Hon Mr Justice Munby, His Honour Judge Meston QC, District Judge Michael Walker and District Judge Nicholas Crichton.
Futility experienced in family court
In April 2004, the Honourable Mr. Justice Munby of the Court of Appeal in the UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
wrote:
- From the father’s perspective the last two years of the litigation have been an exercise in absolute futility. …
- He is entitled to [feel let down]. … I can understand why he expresses that view. He has every right to express that view. In a sense it is shaming to have to say it, but I personally agree with his view. It is very, very disheartening. I am sorry there is nothing more I can do." http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/judgmentsfiles/j2466/f-v-m.htm.
Family court on parental alienation and PAS
The legal system in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
has seen argument about parental alienation
Parental alienation
Parental alienation is a social dynamic, generally occurring due to divorce or separation, when a child expresses unjustified hatred or unreasonably strong dislike of one parent, making access by the rejected parent difficult or impossible...
and parental alienation syndrome
Parental alienation syndrome
Parental alienation syndrome is term coined by Richard A. Gardner in the early 1980s to refer to what he describes as a disorder in which a child, on an ongoing basis, belittles and insults one parent without justification, due to a combination of factors, including indoctrination by the other...
as is illustrated by comments the following cases:
Lady Justice Hale (in Re K (Contact: Psychiatric Report) [1995] 2 FLR 432) stated:
- It is my unhappy experience, borne out by other anecdotal evidence and confirmed by the Official SolicitorOfficial SolicitorThe Office of the Official Solicitor is a part of the Ministry of Justice of the Government of the United Kingdom. The Official Solicitor acts for people who, because they lack mental capacity and cannot properly manage their own affairs, are unable to represent themselves and no other suitable...
's department that there seems to be an increasing number of cases coming before the family courts where contact between a young child and the absent parent has become bedevilled by stubborn opposition to contact being shown by the child which may, or may not, be evidence of some implacable hostility on the part of the other parent for good reason or for no reason at all.
Since The Children Act requires that the views of the child need to be made known to the court, fathers' rights campaigners claim that the mother sometimes alienates a child against his or her father and that this then supports the mother's case in court to banish the father. Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the Family division, (the top UK family court judge) stated (in Re L, V, M, H (Contact: Domestic Violence) [2002] 2 FLR 334 at 351):
- There is, of course, no doubt that some parents, particularly mothers, are responsible for alienating their children from their fathers without good reason and thereby creating this sometimes insoluble problem. That unhappy state of affairs, well known in family courts, is a long way from recognised syndrome requiring mental health professionals to play an expert role.
Bob Geldof's involvement
Relatively recently, Bob GeldofBob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...
, organizer of the Live Aid and the Live 8
Live 8
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005; they also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid...
projects, has become involved in the British fathers' rights movement.http://www.fathers.ca/bob_geldof.htm Geldof claims to be an iconoclast
Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
, calling his arguments rants which express his feelings towards British family law, as well as towards issues of a more personal matter.
Bob Geldof, and others, argue that without substantial changes, the application of current British custody law will lead to a generation of feral children. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1958237.stm. Geldof has written:
- The law must know it is contributing to the problem. It is creating vast wells of misery, massive discontent, an unstable society of feral children and reckless adolescents who have no understanding of authority or ultimate sanction, no knowledge of a man’s love and how it is different but equal to a woman’s, irresponsible mothers, drifting, hopeless fathers, problem and violent ill-educated sons and daughters, a disconnect from the extended family and society at large, vast swathes of cynicism and repeat pattern behaviour in subsequent adult relationships.
Fathers' rights campaigners question the assumption that it can ever be legitimate for the state to collude in disrupting a loving and natural relationship between a father and his children. Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...
has written evocatively on this subject: I cannot even say the words. A huge emptiness would well in my stomach, a deep loathing for those who would deign to tell me they would ALLOW me ACCESS to my children — those I loved above all, those I created, those who gave meaning to everything I did, those that were the very best of us two and the absolute physical manifestation of our once blinding love. Who the fuck are they that they should ALLOW anything? REASONABLE CONTACT!!! Is the law mad? Am I a criminal? An ABSENT parent. A RESIDENT/NON-RESIDENT parent. This Lawspeak which you all speak so fluently, so unthinkingly, so hurtfully, must go.
See also
Men's movementMen's movement
The men's movement is a social movement that includes a number of philosophies and organizations that seek to support men, change the male gender role and improve men's rights in regard to marriage, child access and victims of domestic violence...
including:
- Fathers' rights movement
- Fathers' rights movement by countryFathers' rights movement by countryThe fathers' rights movement has evolved in many countries. This article provides details about the fathers' rights movement in specific countries.-Australia:...
- Fathers' rights movement by country
- F4J
- Families Need Fathers (FNF)
- MasculismMasculismMasculism may refer to political, cultural, and economic movements aimed at establishing and defending political, economic, and social rights and participation in society for men and boys. These rights include legal issues, such as those of conscription, child custody, alimony, and equal pay for...
- Men's rightsMen's rightsMen's rights is an umbrella term, encompassing the political rights, entitlements, and freedoms given or denied to males within a nation or culture....
- Child custodyChild custodyChild custody and guardianship are legal terms which are used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent and his or her child, such as the right of the parent to make decisions for the child, and the parent's duty to care for the child.Following ratification of the United...
- Child supportChild supportIn family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
- Child Support AgencyChild Support AgencyThe Child Support Agency is a delivery arm of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission in Great Britain and the Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland...
- Child Support Agency
- Children and Family Court Advisory and Support ServiceChildren and Family Court Advisory and Support ServiceThe Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service is a non-departmental public body for England and Wales set up to safeguard and promote the welfare of children involved in family court proceedings...
(CAFCASS) - Domestic violenceDomestic violenceDomestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
- Family courtFamily courtA family court is a court convened to decide matters and make orders in relation to family law, such as custody of children. In common-law jurisdictions "family courts" are statutory creations primarily dealing with equitable matters devolved from a court of inherent jurisdiction, such as a...
- Family lawFamily lawFamily law is an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including:*the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships;...
- Parenting planParenting planA Parenting Plan or Custody Agreement is required by the district court along with divorce paperwork when parents divorce or separate. A Parenting Plan allows parents to avoid future conflicts arising from a lack of guidelines in dealing with responsibilities relating to the children...
- PaternityPaternity (law)In law, paternity is the legal acknowledgment of the parental relationship between a man and a child usually based on several factors.At common law, a child born to the wife during a marriage is the husband's child under the "presumption of legitimacy", and the husband is assigned complete rights,...
- Shared parentingShared parentingShared parenting refers to a collaborative arrangement in child custody or divorce determinations in which the care of the children is equal or more than substantially shared between the biological parents.- Nature and History :...
- Shared residency in English lawShared residency in English lawShared residence, or joint residence, refers to the situation where the child of parents who have divorced or separated reside with each parent at different times, and each parent has equal status in law. In English family law s8 Children Act 1989 defines a residence order as one "...settling the...
- The Children Act