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Difference between revisions of "Resolving Family Law Problems out of Court"
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Resolving Family Law Problems out of Court (view source)
Revision as of 17:33, 6 January 2013
, 17:33, 6 January 2013→The Family Law Act and Alternatives to Court
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==The Family Law Act and Alternatives to Court== | ==The Family Law Act and Alternatives to Court== | ||
The provincial ''Family Law Act'' was written to encourage people to revolve family law problems other than through court. According to the government's [http://www.ag.gov.bc.ca/legislation/family-law/pdf/ | The provincial ''Family Law Act'' was written to encourage people to revolve family law problems other than through court. According to the government's [http://www.ag.gov.bc.ca/legislation/family-law/pdf/part2.pdf explanation] of the new act: | ||
<blockquote>"Section 4 emphasizes that out-of-court dispute resolution processes and resolution through agreements are not simply add-ons to litigation but are the preferred option, with court as a valued, but last, resort.<blockquote> | |||
<blockquote>"This focus on family dispute resolution signals an important shift from the ''Family Relations Act'', which was criticized for being litigation-focused and for assuming that | |||
every dispute would end in a trial."</blockquote> | |||
The act supports the resolution of disputes out of court by: | |||
* requiring lawyers to explain the different ways that family law disputes can be resolved (ss. 4 and 8) | |||
* requiring the people involved in a family law dispute to make full disclosure of the information necessary to resolve the dispute, even when they're not in court (s. 5) | |||
* providing for the use of parenting coordinators to resolve disputes about parenting (ss. 15 to 19) | |||
* changing the rules about arbitration to better accommodate the arbitration of family law disputes (ss. 305 to 313) | |||
* allowing the court to delay a court proceeding while the parties attempt to resolve a family law dispute out of court (s. 223) | |||
The act also allows the court to require people involved in a court proceeding to attempt to resolve their dispute out of court, and to attend counselling, at s. 224: | |||
<tt> | |||
:: (1) A court may make an order to do one or both of the following: | |||
::::(a) require the parties to participate in family dispute resolution; | |||
::::(b) require one or more parties or, without the consent of the child's guardian, a child, to attend counselling, specified services or programs. | |||
::(2) If the court makes an order under subsection (1), the court may allocate among the parties, or require one party alone to pay, the fees relating to the family dispute resolution, counselling, services or programs. | |||
</tt> | |||
sd | |||
==Alternatives to Court== | ==Alternatives to Court== | ||
