Family Justice Oversight Group - Phase 1 Consultation

Published: Tuesday, March 02, 2021

NWC welcomes the invitation to contribute to the Family Justice Oversight Group Phase 1 Consultation. As family law is one of the most pressing and critical issues for the women we work with, we would like to highlight some of the issues faced by women and women with children going through the family law system when separating from abusive partners, in the context of the questions posed by the Group. It is self-evident that an outdated, underfunded and inadequate justice system adds to the harms already experienced by victims of domestic and intimate partner abuse. From the outset we sound a cautionary note; any review of the family law system without close consideration of the intertwined but critically disconnected criminal and civil jurisdictions is doomed to fail. Ireland’s consistently low prosecution rates, low conviction rates as well as high attrition rates concerning domestic, sexual and gender-based crimes exemplify why the current partitioning of jurisdictions is ineffective to addressing these types of crimes.

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