Emergency review set up to prevent perpretrators cross-examining victims in family court
Primary legislation could be introduced with “urgency” to ban alleged domestic abuse perpetrators from cross-examining their victims in the family courts.
Justice Secretary Liz Truss last week announced she was setting up an emergency review to find the quickest way to bring the family courts into line with the criminal courts, where such cross-examinations have been stopped. According to research by Women’s Aid, a quarter of domestic violence victims who appear in the family courts have been cross-examined by their abusive former partners.
Justice minister Oliver Heald told MPs this week that primary legislation would be required, and that a consultation with survivors’ groups may not be necessary because the proposed ban is straightforward. The move by ministers follows calls by Sir James Munby, England and Wales’ most senior family judge, for urgent reform of the way in which vulnerable people give evidence in family proceedings.
Family law solicitor David Burrows said “the unmet needs of vulnerable individuals in family proceedings go much wider than” alleged abusers cross-examining abused parties and witnesses.
He highlighted that a working group set up by Sir James produced draft rules on vulnerable witnesses in mid-2015. “The draft took many leads from criminal proceedings under Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (special measures to help children and vulnerable witnesses),” he said.
“The draft covers children and vulnerable individuals. It includes—but this is only one element—provision for those who are subjected to further abuse by being cross-examined in person by their alleged abuser. Victims include one of a former couple, a child who gives evidence proceedings, or any other witness in family proceedings.
“The Ministry of Justice is aware that the rules amendments have resources implications, but so too have the 1999 adjustments in criminal proceedings. In family proceedings, legal aid could be used in European Convention 1950 exceptional case funding for vulnerable parties and children, and many of the criminal proceedings measures are already available, but not used, in family proceedings, as Lady Hale has pointed out in Re A (Sexual Abuse: Disclosure) [2012] UKSC 60.”
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