PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Family Courts: Domestic Abuse (14 January 2015)

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what practice directions are in place on the allocation of judges in civic and family courts to domestic violence cases; and how many judges on average are involved in such cases.

Asked by:
Seema Malhotra (Labour)

The allocation of judges in Family Court cases involving domestic violence is governed by Part 5 of the Family Court (Composition and Distribution of Business) Rules 2014, which came into force on 22nd April 2014.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/840/part/5/made

The allocation process for applications and proceedings in domestic violence cases (set out in Part 5 of the Rules) is governed by whether the application is being brought under Part 4 of the Family Law Act 1996.

Domestic violence cases brought to the Family Court under Part 4 of the Family Law Act 1996 can therefore be heard by any judge sitting in the Family Court. We do not collect data on how many of the Family Court judges are involved in domestic violence cases.

Practice Direction 12J (Child Arrangements and Contact Orders: Domestic Violence and Harm) sets out what the Family Court should do in any case in which it is “alleged or admitted, or there is other reason to believe, that the child or a party has experienced domestic violence or abuse perpetrated by another party or that there is a risk of such violence or abuse”;

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/family/practice_directions/pd_part_12j

Answered by:
Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat)
19 January 2015