ABSTRACT
Radical changes in dispute resolution approaches have challenged the all-pervasive legal and ‘adjudicative bias’ that for so long conditioned thinking about dispute resolution in Western society. Until the Family Law Act 1996, legal aid in divorce cases was available only for legal advice and representation. The main aims of the Children Act were twofold: to have a single body of law relating to the care and upbringing of children; and to provide a consistent set of legal remedies for all courts and in all proceedings. The intention of the Children Act 1989 has been to promote - by means of the legal concept of parental responsibility - the involvement of both parents in the upbringing of their children, post divorce and separation. Government proposals for divorce law reform were published in April 1995 in a White Paper entitled Looking to the Future: Mediation and the Ground for Divorce following an extensive two-year consultation process.
