Family Courts
Courts hearing family cases are not open to the public. There are strict controls on reporting of family cases so as to protect the privacy of the parties, and particularly of any children involved.
These restrictions also allow the court to control who the parties bring with them to court. Your lawyer will always be allowed to attend but the court may not allow relatives or friends to attend the hearing. A party who is unrepresented may be allowed to bring a lay adviser to help him or her. Lay advisers, known as MacKenzie Friends, are not allowed to speak to the court.
The restrictions on privacy also prevent the parties showing others their court papers, including their own statements and discussing their case. These restrictions do not stop you discussing your case or showing court papers to your spouse or partner, to legal advisers, to a lay adviser, MacKenzie Friend, to your M.P. or to the Police. You can also do this so that you can get health care or counselling for yourself or your child, or for the purposes of mediation in relation to the proceedings.
What is the role of the court?
- To control the proceedings so they are dealt with fairly and with the minimum of delay.
- To hear evidence and make decisions about the facts. In family cases the judge or magistrates decides on the basis that it is more probable than not that an event happened. This is the civil standard of proof.
- To decide questions of law. The judge will hear arguments from lawyers and make a ruling. In the Family Proceedings Court, questions of law are decided by the magistrates with the help of a legal adviser.
- To decide the outcome if the parties cannot agree and a ruling is required.
- To make court orders according to the parties' agreement or the court's decision. Not all court cases end with court orders. The court may decide in a case about a child that it is in the child's best interests for no order to be made.
Which courts deal with family cases?
- Family Proceedings Courts (Magistrates' Courts) deal with most types of cases about children but cannot grant a divorce or make orders about property.
- County Courts deal with divorce, family property and cases about children. Cases from the Family Proceedings Court may be transferred to the County Court if they are complicated or the County Court is dealing with other matters about the family.
- The High Court deals with very complicated family cases and cases with a foreign element.
