Justice for Families News December 2009: John Hemming

Update from John Hemming, MP (Justice for Families)

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p5foE-2tc

Justice for Families News December 2009

05 December 2009

Apologies for the infrequent newsletters. In some senses we are making more progress in terms of getting systematic change. There have been a lot of media stories and we are not going to try to highlight any.

The most important campaigning issue is that of ensuring that Clayton v Clayton is not reversed. I believe that the government intend to continue increasing openness in the family courts, but the Chidlren, Schools and Families bill has the effect of reversing Clayton v Clayton.

There is an early day motion EDM 325

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=39885&SESSION=903

That this House notes that the Government has expressed a desire to increase accountability in the family courts; regrets that the Children, Schools and Families Bill as currently drafted would have the effect of increasing secrecy in the family courts; and calls on the Government urgently to draft amendments to deliver its commitment to accountability.

Please encourage people to write to their MPs to do this.

There has been a slight shift in the Court of Appeal and we have won a few cases there recently. One is this one.

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2009/1210.html

One strand of that is being appealed to the Supreme Court and will be taken to Europe.

The other judgments that we have won have not yet been published.

We are continuing to send cases to Europe.

Our casework for putting cases to the Court of Appeal and European Court has gone up a notch. Julie Haines is coordinating this process.

European Investigation Launched into Family Court Human Rights Abuses

We also now have a rapporteur appointed in the Council of Europe for an investigation into Human Rights in the Family Courts across Europe.

Judicial review into government insanity

An application for judicial review of the government’s policy on the basis that they got the formula wrong for the adoption target has been issued.

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This email is from Justice for Families. The Liberal Democrats have kindly agreed that Justice for Families can use their list server for free. Justice for Families, however, is not affiliated to any political party and the Liberal Democrats are not affiliated to Justice for Families.

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John Hemming blogs at: http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/