Chief Judge Defends Contentious Australian Family Court Merger
The chief judge of the newly created Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCA) has issued a statement reaffirming the court is more than capable of handling sensitive divorce and child custody matters, as it faces a barrage of criticism from stakeholders in the former family law system.
Each year, Australians file over 106,000 new family law cases in the court system covering divorces, child custody, and property disputes, according to a PwC report (pdf).
The merger of the Family Court and Federal Court into one entity, the FCFCA, is an attempt by the government to speed up the processing of family law cases which has seen some judges attempt to juggle over 600 cases at one time.
Some Family Court matters used to be dealt with by the Federal Circuit Court. “There had been discussions for more than a decade about the fact we had these two court systems dealing with family law and there were many problems associated with that,” Lynch said.
However, it was a Coalition government that two decades ago that first separated the court’s functions and, at the time, women’s legal advocates were highly critical of that decision.
“Our position is that an amalgamation is a positive thing,” Lynch said
. But such a move “should retain the stand-alone Family Court”.
Those parts of the Federal Circuit Court that deal with family law should be brought into a lower tier of the Family Court of Australia, she said, “thus retaining the specialist stand alone Family Court structure”.
The NSW Bar Association has joined law societies, legal bodies and retired justices and judges from across Australia in expressing their disappointment with the Family and Federal Circuit Court merger, which was approved controversially last week.