Family Court Changes Announced

The programme of earlier intervention in urgent Family Court cases announced by Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier in December came into action on Monday 12th April.
The changes also include the Family Court placing a more determined emphasis on mediation of non-urgent cases.

The adoption and implementation of the National Early Intervention Programme follows a positive evaluation of the Parenting Hearings Programme, which has been piloted in six Family Courts for a two year period. The evaluation highlighted the importance to families of a judicial decision being made at the earliest possible opportunity and the importance of being able to talk directly to a judge.

The essential elements of the National Early Intervention Programme are:
Applications that are seen as urgent will follow a different course from standard cases, and must adhere to strict expectations in terms of steps taken, directions given and complied with, and a time for disposal of the case. This will include the majority of domestic violence cases.
The law currently requires that once a Protection Order has been made without notice and no defence is filed the Court should resolve that application within 42 days of the defence being filed. On many occasions this requirement is not complied with. The new programme will seek to ensure this is met.
In standard cases, counselling of both parties will be more strictly monitored and precede mediation with specialist mediators. These will initially be lawyers appointed to assist the Court, as the Family Court Matters legislation which allows for the family mediators has not yet been implemented.
If the case is not resolved during mediation, it will head to a 45 minute Rule 175 Conference, which will involve direct engagement between the judge and the parties involved to see if a settlement can be reached.
Further information regarding the Early Intervention Programme changes is available at: http://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/family-court/documents/publications/sp...

The flow chart for the Early Intervention Programme is available at: http://www.justice.govt.nz/courts/family-court/documents/practice-and-pr...

The full "Parenting Hearings Programme Pilot Evaluation Report" is available at: http://www.justice.govt.nz/publications/global-publications/p/parenting-...