Trenchant drafting and recommendations for urgent action have not been the hallmarks of reports from the Law Reform Commission over the years, but they are abundantly evident in yesterday's report on family courts. It says bluntly - sometimes scathingly - that "the family law system is now in crisis", that its courts are "buckling under the pressure of business" and that "the structures which this society offers for the mediation and resolution of family conflict are inadequate in the extreme". The case is made convincingly and with proper regard for the resource issues involved. It should be acted upon with despatch by the Government.
This report and its detailed recommendations for action, are very timely in the wake of the divorce referendum. In the recent Court and Court Officers' Bill the Government has increased the number of judges in the District Court by five and in the Circuit Court by seven. Much of their work is expected to be taken up by the addition of divorce proceedings to the chronic accumulation of cases arising from the 1989 Judicial Separation Act, assuming the Supreme Court rejects Mr Des Hanafin's appeal against the referendum. The report makes it clear how overloaded the system is, how starved of physical and human resources. This creates intolerable delays in the administration of justice and develops a two tier system of family justice in which poorer, often unrepresented people, seek justice in the District Court while their wealthier neighbours use the more sophisticated remedies available in the Circuit Court.
The remedies proposed in this report combine structural and legal reform with a major injection of resources. As it says, long family law lists, brief hearings, delays, inadequate facilities and over hasty settlements are too often the order of the day; not to mention the likelihood that bad judgments are inescapable in such a pressured system. The facts that family cases are heard in private and are therefore unreported by the media, and that judgments are in the great majority of cases unwritten, mean that the public has been gravely ill informed about the extent of the social problems involved or about legal trends in responding to them. Judicial training and specialisation are recommended. It is proposed that bona fide researchers be allowed access to family courts. Media access should also be considered, within the framework of necessary privacy.
The major recommendations are sensible and well argued. They call for a reformed family courts structure in 15 regional centres under the aegis of the Circuit Court. This would have a full range of family, information and advice services and much more efficient pre trial and case management procedures. A change in the legal culture away from adversarialism, together with a strong shift towards mediation as an alternative to - but not a replacement of - litigation is advocated. There is a humane suggestion that courts should have the right to appoint an independent representative for a child in family court proceedings.
This is a good, progressive document. It is alert to some of the most important social changes going on in this State, which have been lamentably under reported and therefore often misunderstood. It is incumbent on the Government to find the political will and the resources to take the report on board and to implement, or improve upon, its main proposals. Anything less would mean that it stands in bad faith with the electorate which was just convinced to vote in favour of divorce last November.