FNF submission to Justice Committee inquiry into the Future of Legal Aid

We summarised that the impact of LASPO in private family law Children Act proceedings, has been:

1. the near collapse of family mediation (in significant part due to growth in domestic abuse allegations and abuse of the system designed to protect the vulnerable)
2. to widen the imbalance of access to justice between complainants and respondents to allegations of domestic abuse
3. a substantial increase in the number of litigants in person and in the total number of cases as well
4. a degradation of justice for children in private law proceedings
5. to substantially increase family conflict.

Amongst our recommendations we proposed:

1. that it is never appropriate to restrict legal aid eligibility to just one party – the need for an ‘equality of arms’
2. that legal aid granted on the basis of allegations is withdrawn once allegations are determined by the court to have been unfounded or irrelevant
3. that measures designed to protect alleged victims must be designed to also protect alleged perpetrators, and their children as many typically prove to be innocent and the allegations unfounded
4. that an Early Intervention Pathway is adopted, with Finding of Fact hearings taking place within weeks, before child-parent relationships are damaged.