For family court in Hong Kong, see Family Court (Hong Kong)

A family court is a court convened to decide matters and make orders in relation to family law, such as custody of children. In common-law jurisdictions "family courts" are statutory creations primarily dealing with equitable matters devolved from a court of inherent jurisdiction, such as a superior court.

History of the family court

The family court is a branch of the Superior Court justice system and is created under s.21.1 of the Courts of Justice Act.

Case types

Case types may include:

• Child support
• Child custody
• Visitation rights
• Restraining orders
• Emancipation of minors

Does not include Divorce

Family court in the United Kingdom

Cases involving children are primarily dealt with under The Children Act 1989, amongst other statutes. Two types of scenario are covered by The Children Act 1989: private law cases, where the applicant and respondent are usually the child's parents; and public law cases, where the applicant is the local authority and the parents are usually respondents. There is much debate at present over whether the manner in which the law is administered generally leads to outcomes that are beneficial to the families concerned. In this context, see fathers' rights. Cases involving divorce and the division of assets are primarily dealt with under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Cases involving domestic violence are primarily dealt with under Part IV of the Family Law Act 1996.

See also

• Family law
• Family Procedure Rules
• Subject-matter jurisdiction

The child is represented by a CAFCASS guardian. Often parents are assessed by 'experts,' these are in fact not formally qualified and the standard can be quite low. There are cases of children taken from their parents and put up for adoption and the parents were later totally exonerated of what they were accused of. In a chilling reminder of slavery children are often advertised before they are adopted, mixed race children are often offered exclusively to black parents. Children of rare ethnic backgrounds are seldom placed with people of their own culture whilst in care and adopted out of that culture after they are 'freed for adoption,' religions are not held as an important factor in deciding where a child is adopted, special safeguards have been set up to protect Islam but not any of the other religions. If the child is not sold in one year then the freeing order can be overturned. The system is not a bad one on paper, but false accounting is quite common in family courts by social worker and Cafcass workers and is seldom challenged. The Cafcass worker is meant to be neutral between social services and the parents but many are in fact not. The parents find it harder to justify themselves because there is 'a lower threshold of proof' in a family court than a normal criminal court, meaning that an allegation need have no proof to be believed. The well being of the child is not safeguarded in a system which doesn't seem to have any place in a 21st century democracy and many children lose contact with their parents to meet a quota target on adoptions laid down by Tony Blair.

External links

• Family Courts in Ontario

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