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Family courts face adverse effect of rise in LIPs
This column documents evidence of the effect of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012. Readers are invited to send in relevant information for publication. Submissions of up to 500 words will be published in full and, on request, anonymised. E-mail: vwilliams@lag.org.uk using the message title ‘Legal aid cuts impact statement’. The increase in divorcing couples representing themselves is making the work of the family courts ‘huge and unmanageable’ said former president of the Family Division Baroness Butler-Sloss. The crossbench peer, who was speaking during a House of Lords general debate about legal systems and the rule of law in July, said: ‘Barristers and solicitors now do very little of this [private law] work because most litigants have no money, so men and women, untrained in the law but fighting their failed relationships through the arena of the courts, are appearing unrepresented before judges and magistrates. The task of the courts, faced with carrier bags of unsorted and disorganised papers in child cases and even more so in financial disputes over the former matrimonial home and maintenance, is huge and unmanageable. On a practical note, it clogs the courts and creates delay.’
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, in partnership with the Magistrates’ Association, surveyed a sample group of 461 magistrates sitting in a variety of courts across the country:
•46% of the parties seen by magistrates in the private family courts were representing themselves.
•The majority (97%) of magistrates who saw a party representing themselves believe that self-representation has a negative impact on the court’s work.
•62% of magistrates said that litigants in person have a negative impact on the court’s work most or all of the time.
•Magistrates voiced concerns about time delays to hearings, a misbalance in legal battles and the possibility that justice is not being done.