ABSTRACT
Refl ecting global economic conditions, current issues regarding the delivery of family justice are largely driven by concerns over costs. Jurisdictions that have in the past attempted to develop therapeutic models to supplement or even partially replace ‘adversarial legal’ models, such as in the family court movement in the United States, or the Family Court of Australia, have found that these models require signifi cant resources if they are to be effective. In New Zealand, for example, a government Consultation Paper starts with the premise that the costs of the current family court are not sustainable. 1 Countries have, therefore, been seeking ways to ration these resources within the court system through triage processes, promoting alternative dispute resolution, and seeking to divert cases from the courts. However, strong outof-court structures, such as the Australian Family Relationship Centres, can have high costs as was recognised by a Canadian Working Group which, refl ecting reform proposals in many provinces, recommended signifi cant promotion of non-court dispute resolution. 2
The desire to remove disputes from courts, and indeed from lawyers, has been very strong in England and Wales, which has gone as far as to attempt to downgrade the importance of the role of law in private family cases. 3 Similar reactions have appeared in New Zealand and British Columbia. 4 In continental Europe, on the other hand, at least in France, Belgium and Germany, there has not been the equivalent effort to take family issues away from courts and lawyers. Instead, policies and strategies have developed to get courts to dispose of cases as quickly as possible, a process described by Hartmund Rosa as ‘acceleration’. 5
1 Reviewing the Family Court: A Consultation Paper , Wellington: Ministry of Justice, 2011. 2 Meaning ful Change for Family Justice: Beyond Wise Words , Report of the Family Justice Working Group
of the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, 19 December 2012. 3 J. Eekelaar, ‘ “Not of the Highest Importance”: Family Justice under Threat’, Journal of Social Welfare
and Family Law 33, 2011, 311-17. 4 Op. cit., n 1; R. Treloar and S.B. Boyd, ‘Family Law Reform in (Neoliberal) Context: British
Columbia’s New Family Law Act’, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 28, 2014, 60-76. 5 See H. Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity , New York: Columbia University Press,
2013; H. Rosa, Beschleunigung: die Veränderung der Zeitstrukturen in der Moderne , Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005.
