Media Release from the Family Law Section

11 April 2003

Dispute resolution in the Family Court
The Family Law Section of the New Zealand Law Society supports, for the most part, Law Commission recommendations for improving dispute resolution in the Family Court.

Section Chair David Burns today enthusiastically endorsed recommendations that require efficiencies in, and extra resources for, the existing system as well as those for new services could significantly reduce the court’s workload and might also change its nature and role.

"We encourage Lianne Dalziel, the Minister responsible for the Law Commission, to implement immediately the many recommendations designed to improve court process and management, such as increasing the number of judges and court staff and increasing salaries. This includes extending the role of the Family Court Coordinator, who is a crucial member of staff and should be recognised as such," he says.

The Section also supports proper collection of information about court users but says this should be done on a voluntary rather than mandatory basis and appropriate programmes should be made available to children as well as parties to cases.

Improving the existing dispute resolution procedures as an alternative to judge-imposed decisions, by contracting family court mediators, "will bring outside skills and new enthusiasm to the process," David Burns says.

"Generally mediation should be offered as early as possible since one of its advantages, and indeed one of the motivations for parties, is to save the cost of later steps in litigation."

The Section also approves recommendations to ascertain and incorporate children's views.

"There could be more input from children at an earlier stage and children should be able to expect to have a voice in the proceedings," David Burns says. Counsel who represent children would also welcome extra training if offered, as was recommended.

In its submissions, the Section had acknowledged that the present system did not properly recognise and support the needs of Maori and it is pleased that the Law Commission is calling for more dispute resolution processes designed by Maori. The Section had called for conciliation for Maori to be in a Maori context - for example having a whanau hui and it agreed that Maori should be consulted about further changes to conciliation services and procedure that would better recognise Maori values and protocols.

David Burns says there could be benefits in making available appropriate conciliation services that include education, advice, information, counselling, mediation, dispute resolution and litigation for all Family Court proceedings. However, it will be important to ensure that providers of these services are well trained, adequately resourced, accessible and of sufficient variety to ensure that the needs of all groups can be met.

The only note of caution the Section has is that the provision of so many services by the Family Court is desirable but only so long as the court does not lose sight of its fundamental basis for existence – as the ultimate decision-making forum for those unable to otherwise resolve or reconcile their differences.