Clare Williams provides a practical guide to the court’s options for civil restraint orders in family practice
- Rarely used in family law, civil restraint orders (CROs) require a party to obtain the permission of the court before making particular applications or claims.
- The three types of CRO (limited, extended and general) represent a scale of increasing severity.
The civil restraint order (CRO) is seldom encountered in family practice. Reported examples frequently share features such as extreme acrimony and a tortuous procedural history; occasionally, CROs are made following years-long vendettas against the legal system. Difficult cases are nothing strange to the family lawyer, but it is important for practitioners to be aware of when and how the court can exercise one of its most extreme powers of case management.
What is a CRO?
CROs require a party to obtain the permission of the court before making particular applications or claims. They function as a filtering mechanism rather than an outright ban. The leading (civil) case is Bhamjee v Forsdick
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