Office of Head of International Family Justice sees cases double in two years

The number of cross-border family legal disputes where the Office of the Head of International Family Justice has been called in to assist has doubled in the last two years alone.

The Office’s annual report revealed that there were 253 cases in 2012. This was up from 92 cases in 2010, 65 in 2008 and 6 in 2006.

The Office, headed by Lord Justice Thorpe, is brought in to facilitate trans-national judicial collaboration mainly over abductions and other child custody disputes between parents living in different countries.

The report attributed the rise to the increasing number of families where parents are of different nationalities, and pointed to the growing numbers of children born to foreign parents.

It also said there was greater awareness of the benefits that the Office provided in appropriate cases.

The number of outgoing requests (from England & Wales) accounted for 82% of cases, significantly outweighing those coming from overseas, which mostly focused on public and private law children cases.

The breakdown of parties requesting the Office’s assistance was as follows:

• Judges: 28%;
• Self-employed barristers: 23%;
• Solicitors/employed barristers (including legal teams of local authorities): 33%;
• Litigants (including McKenzie Friends): 11%;
• Academics: 1%;
• Charities: 1%; and
• Officials (including Cafcass and the Central Authority): 3%.

The Office’s 2012 caseload involved work with 71 jurisdictions. Half the requests related to Europe.

A copy of the annual report can be viewed here.