'Safety must come first in family law': Legal groups reject merger plan

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A coalition of more than 60 legal organisations has urged the federal government to abandon a plan to scrap the Family Court as a stand-alone entity | MWhitbourn

A coalition of more than 60 legal organisations has urged the federal government to abandon a plan to scrap the Family Court as a stand-alone entity, warning that a proposed courts merger risks the safety of child and adult victims of family violence.is at loggerheads with the country's peak body for the legal profession, the Law Council of Australia

In an open letter to Mr Porter, released on Monday, more than 60 organisations including the Law Council and peak bodies Women's Legal Services Australia, Community Legal Centres Australia and National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services urged the government to return to the drawing board on family law reform."The safety of children and adult victims-survivors of family violence requires increased specialisation," the letter says.

Nerita Waight, co-chair of National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, said the reforms would "disproportionately impact the most vulnerable including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families who need the most support"., the Australian Law Reform Commission said the majority of family law cases in federal courts now involved violence, child abuse or other complex factors.

Angela Lynch, spokesperson for Women’s Legal Services Australia, said the lack of a stand-alone specialist court would make it "much easier" for future governments not to replace specialist judges. In a speech last week, Law Council of Australia president Arthur Moses, SC, accused the federal government of adopting a "stubborn and wrong-headed approach to family law" that will hurt children and families.

 

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MWhitbourn Whatever pieties the divorce/DV industry may proclaim, the hard reality is that they have a concrete interest in encouraging family break-up & virtually all their power & earnings derive from the harm that divorce inflicts on children. More funding means more of the same

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