What would YOU change if you could?

Definitely the visitation arrangements with children for the non-resident parent. Too many of them end up losing contact with their children because the resident parent takes no notice of mutually agreed arrangements (made prior to the actual finalisation of the divorce and settled in the Family Court statements) and/or causes disruption during the non-resident parent’s access visits. There appears to be no control post divorce from any external body. (Mummybear is spot on in relation to formalizing this)

Likewise, in a spousal maintenance arrangement there is no control post divorce on what was agreed going forward in terms of potential changes of circumstance i.e. financially maintained ex spouse hiding either undeclared income or convenient relationship with a new partner. In my experience there are a lot of lies told in order to keep milking someone for support when in reality the individual has moved on.

As interim protective measures until the EU imposes new rules:
[UK gov never will?]
Make solicitors personally accountable for not sticking to the existing minimal rules?
www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed37814
"There is no obvious penalty where this rule (or any of the other Ancillary Relief Rules) are breached, beyond the ultimate sanction of costs. .....The factors the court should take into account include the failure by a party to comply with the relevant rules and practice directions (FPR 2.71(5(a)). However, with the general rule that there will be no order as to costs, in all but exceptional cases, a costs order can be discounted as unlikely."
Where a solicitor fails to comply make the solicitor liable for costs?
Make the current discretionary Law Society AR Protocol mandatory?
Make an impact assessment/outcome report done by the District Judge part of the process before signing a Consent Order?

I guess (and having not read all the comments made so far) I'd personally like a schedule for divorce.

Detailing how much it would cost so a budget could be planned and stuck to, what to expect and when to expect it.

Rather than have out of controlled bills and orders from both the courts and letters from solicitors.

Its not being able to plan finances that has really ruined my life and being ruled by the daily influx of letters etc which no doubt effect your mood.

I’ve only just found this thread, so my apologies for arriving at the party rather late.

The first posting refers to organisations which want to partner with Wikivorce; my experience is that getting different organisations to agree anything in this area is next to impossible. Anyway, here’s my list; some may be a bit controversial:

The first three are the original demands made by F4J:

• Mandatory mediation – this seems to have come up quite often in this discussion; it has to be compulsory; as Judge John Lenderman of Florida said, “I'm totally convinced mediation should be mandatory. Every judge that I've talked to around the United States says mandatory mediation is the way to go.”

• Open justice – the family courts must be wholly open; not the feeble compromise we have now. Judges and other professionals must be accountable for their decisions and the process – not just the judgements – must be open to scrutiny. Litigants need access to cases similar to theirs if they are to prepare properly. There is absolutely no evidence from jurisdictions which are open that a child has ever been harmed through publicity and none that a child has been protected by anonymity. It’s absurd to imagine that children in the playground read the Times law reports.

• A rebuttable presumption of shared parenting – the legal starting point must be that both parents have equal status and equal responsibilities. The courts must get rid of the terrible apartheid of resident/non-resident parent which so often leads to children losing a parent entirely. Parents must be treated equally; as Bob Geldof said, “This Lawspeak which you all speak so fluently, so unthinkingly, so hurtfully, must go.”

In addition to these reforms I would add the following:

• As an interim measure, allow legal aid in collaborative law cases. Collaborative law encourages parents to cooperate and has a claimed 85% success rate, while the adversarial alternative is hugely costly and comparatively ineffective.

• Establish as a general principle that no parent should be able to profit substantially either financially or by gaining control of their children through divorce. Far too often fathers lose their homes, their savings and their children because judges follow a false belief that the mother should not suffer a drop in her standard of living following divorce, regardless of the effect on her former husband.

• Establish as a general principle that neither the State nor any individual should be able to profit through the promotion of family breakdown or increased hostility between separating partners.

• It’s clear from other postings that many people resent a system in which there is no consequence to a spouse for committing adultery, and in which the partner who unilaterally petitions for divorce pays no penalty for breaching the marriage contract. What we have now is not no-fault divorce but divorce in which the innocent party is held to be equally at fault. That is unjust and leads to increased ill-feeling and animosity.

• Strict enforcement of the no-delay principle. Parents who exploit delay for tactical advantage should be severely penalised; lawyers who do it should be struck off.

• A re-assessment of the welfare principle. Historically it is a compromise: the feminists who persuaded the Labour Government of 1924 to adopt it wanted it to be the sole principle, not merely the paramount one. It doesn’t mean anything: the lack of legal definition means that anyone can interpret it to suit his or her prejudices and the understanding of it has changed gradually over time. It doesn’t work in all cases – for example in LTR cases – and it often conflicts with other considerations. The interests of other children who should be considered – for example half-siblings, or the mother herself if she too is a minor – can conflict with the interests of the child subject to proceedings. It encourages lazy lawyers and incompetent FCAs to ignore all other factors and treat it as the sole principle. I would suggest a reform which looks at the interests of the family as a whole (including grandparents) rather than those of just one individual within the family.

• Remove cases – especially highly conflicted ones – from the courts altogether. If (mandatory) mediation doesn’t work the chances are either that one parent represents a risk of violence or abuse – and the case should then be treated as a child protection issue – or that one parent suffers from a mental health disorder: where there is no sign of resolution both parents should be assessed for personality disorders. It is disgraceful that instead in such circumstances the courts allow cases to run on for years without hope of resolution, while lawyers exploit mental illness and child abuse for their own financial gain. The courts act as if they have never seen such cases before, when they should urgently be referring them to appropriate agencies for resolution.

• Leave to remove cases. If parents bring children into the world they should commit to raise them in their country of birth unless both parents agree to take them abroad. If a separating parent decides to emigrate by all means allow them to do so, but they should not assume they can take their children with them, away from the other parent, away from grandparents and the extended family and away from all that is familiar to them.

• Abolish CAFCASS. Whose insane idea was it to hand responsibility for settling parental disputes to the Probation Service? CAFCASS has had a uniquely disastrous history and should be stopped before it harms any more children. It introduces huge delay into many cases (currently 40 weeks for a s.7 report in many regions) and then produces reports which more often than not (according to HMICA and Ofsted) are inadequate. It fails to monitor outcomes and keeps no records, thus ensuring that every recommendation it makes is an uncontrolled experiment on a child. It fails utterly to distinguish between true and false allegations, ensuring that some children lose good, loving parents, while others are forced to have contact (or indeed residence) with parents who mean them harm.

• Establish a benign and child-centred agency which uses sound research and evidence to determine the truth of allegations. Pilot the use of schemes such as the Domestic Violence and Child Abuse Risk Assessments which are successfully being used in Los Angeles.

• Abolish Child Benefit. In the 1920s feminists such as Eleanor Rathbone demanded that the State pay married mothers a wage for bearing and rearing children so that they could become financially independent of their husbands. This became the Family Allowance and then Child Benefit. Now that women make up 50% of the workforce (and take more than 50% of the jobs in the “professions”) this anachronistic benefit can no longer be justified.

• Nor can it be justified for taxpayers to pay benefits to those who put society at risk. Benefits paid for the children of unmarried parents should therefore be stopped. There could be a period of grace, commencing the policy for new births from 2012, for example, and allowing benefits in exceptional circumstances such as rape. Is that too controversial?

• Child Support. Child support payments are made in compensation for the lack of parenting. A monetary payment should never be accepted as a substitute for parenting. The existing system does not allow for shared parenting; indeed, although the 1991 legislation contained a loophole which would have allowed for a shared arrangement, this was plugged by additional legislation in 1992. This was because child support was devised as a tax on parenting, and not as a system for supporting children. Neither the State nor private enforcement agencies (which need to turn a profit) should be able to take money which would otherwise benefit children at a time when they need it most. At present the income of only one parent is considered and payments are taken with uniquely draconian enforcement as if they were fines. He must pay for each night his children are not with him, though there is no reciprocal arrangement by which the other parent pays him, thus he pays disproportionately, and because the liable parent is the father in 95% of cases the system is also sexist. A fairer system would take both incomes into account and apply the same rules to each, eliminating any discrimination.

That’ll do for starters.

I'd ban facef*ck for married couples. Stops them thinking about the greener grass from their past!!

Id make it an offence to lie in court! Id also make it an offence to lie on the forms you have to fill in regarding income and outgoings etc! Divorce court seems to be the only one where you can lie and it dosent matter! It would also be great for the "broad brush" attitude not to be used by the judges but individual cases looked at as just that! Helen x