All change?
Last week David Cameron and Nick Clegg announced the coalition's five year programme for government.
Tucked away on page 20 of the document published by the Cabinet Office is a commitment to "conduct a comprehensive review of family law in order to increase the use of mediation when couples break up and to look at how best to provide greater access rights to non-resident parents and grandparents."
At first blush this review appears to be almost identical in terms and scope to that announced by Jack Straw last January. Indeed both announcements contain a commitment to positively encourage the use of mediation in family proceedings. However whilst the January announcement contained a commitment to investigate all alternatives to traditional litigation the coalition appears to be pinning all its hopes on mediation alone being the panacea.
One hopes that this is not the case. No...
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