As Her Majesty prepares to celebrate her platinum jubilee, we take a look at some of the biggest changes to the landscape of family law since she last had cause for a similar celebration in 2002.
1. Parental responsibility
The Children Act 1989 was amended by the Adoption and Children Act 2002, to provide that unmarried fathers, for the first time, would acquire parental responsibility for their child, if they were registered as the father on the birth certificate. This applied to children born on or after 1st December 2003. Married stepparents were also recognised by the amendments and a regime was added into The Children Act 1989, setting out how a married step-parent could acquire parental responsibility for their step-child. The amendments to this specific area of family law were a definite nod to modern society, unmarried couples and the blended family.
2. “Custody” to “residence” to “lives with”
Before the Children Act 1989, the terms “custody” and “access” were regularly used to describe arrangements for a child. These were replaced by “residence” and “contact” from 1989 and carried right through until the dawn of the Children and Families Act 2014, which introduced Child Arrangements Orders and new terminology of “lives with” and “spends time with”. The most recent change was adopted to make the law more accessible for the lay person and parents trying to navigate the legal system by themselves.
3. Legal Aid
Over the last two decades, access to legal aid for family law cases has dissipated. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 was introduced to cut around £350m off of the government’s annual legal aid budget. In doing so, legal aid for private children cases, divorce and finances suddenly disappeared overnight, leaving many separating couples and frustrated parents without any recourse to legal advice. Inevitably, this has resulted in a huge rise in litigants in person and delays to court cases.
4. Brexit
Perhaps not an obvious one to those outside of the family law arena but the United Kingdom leaving the European Union also changed the landscape of matrimonial proceedings with an international element. For example, where there was once uniformity in how to handle cases of competing jurisdictions with another EU member state, the family lawyer now has to potentially get to grips with the laws of 27 different European countries.
5. No fault divorce
Last but by no means least, an end to “the blame game” finally came into force on 6th April 2022, with the introduction of the no-fault divorce regime. This landmark reform has allowed a huge proportion separating spouses to simply inform the court they wish to divorce, without either having to blame the other. One of the objectives of the reform was to reduce the conflict and acrimony which often accompanied divorce proceedings and just over a month in, the reports are positive.
Manisha Hurchurn, family solicitor at Valemus Law
