The Government has been urged to establish a Family Court Division within the Circuit Court to help alleviate overcrowding and the variation in practices and procedures in family law cases.
The recommendation is contained in the report of the Family Law Reporting Pilot Project carried out by Dr Carol Coulter for the Courts Service. It was presented to Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan and the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, today.
Dr Coulter, an Irish Timesjournalist, was appointed by the Courts Service for a year to produce a series of family law reports as part of the Family Law Matterspilot project.
Today's report sums up the year's work but recommends that the project continue. It suggests the establishment of a regional network of 10-15 family courts around the country.
Dr Carol Coulter
Dr Coulter said: "The unplanned development of the family law system has led to a situation where, despite the best efforts of court staff and judges to provide a service to the public, lists are over-crowded; cases, including urgent cases involving matters relating to the welfare of children, are adjourned for weeks or months at a time; courts often sit late into the night; and litigants cannot be sure that, if their case is adjourned, it will be heard by the same judge when it resumes.
"Practices and procedures can vary from district to district and circuit to circuit, compounding a general lack of information about how the family law system works."
Today's report also asks the Minister to consider whether court regulations could be amended to allow journalists attend family law proceedings. Such cases are heard in camera, and journalists and members of the public are not permitted to be present.
The report suggests a court rule to allow judges to give direction in court to those reporting family law proceedings, particularly on how to maintain litigants' anonymity.
Dr Coulter's report also says the Courts Service should decide if it is appropriate for it to provide a reporting service on family law, and, if so, it should decide the nature of such a service.
The report says the Courts Service should obtain clarification as to whether any barrister or solicitor can, under the law, prepare reports on family law for the media.
Dr Coulter also recommends that judgments, decisions, statistics and some reports on sample cases should be published on the Courts Service website from 2009, or earlier if practicable.
She said many of her recommendations on the family law system echo those of the Law Reform Commission's 1996 report on the family courts.
She suggests that each full-time regional Family Court should maintain an information office and mediation facilities. The report also says that where children's welfare is a priority, applicants should be required to undergo a number of mediation sessions before a case could go to litigation.
Mediated settlements could be brought before the court and made binding, the report proposes.
Dr Coulter's work gave her unprecedented access to family law proceedings. The details of the cases and outcomes, although not the identities of those involved, have been published in a series of reports over the past year.