What is a Family Justice System For?

About the Author Mavis Maclean is Co-Founder of the Oxford Centre for Family Law and Policy, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, UK.Photo courtesy of the University of Oxford: https://www.spi.ox.ac.uk/people/profile/maclean/index.htmlDavid Nelken is Professor of Comparative and Transnational Law and past Vice-Dean for Research at King's College London, UK. Widely published in sociology of law and in criminology, he has received awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Society of Criminology, the International Sociological Association, and the (USA) Law and Society Association. He has twice been a Trustee of the LSA and Vice-President of the RSCL.Rachel Treloar is Lecturer in Law at Keele University, UK. Before joining Keele Law School, she taught at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, Canada. Prior to undertaking doctoral studies, Rachel worked as a family counsellor and ran a community agency program for separating/divorcing parents and their children. In addition to her own research, she has undertaken Research Assistant work in the following areas: lone mothers and social inclusion, childcare and family caregiving policies.Rosemary Hunter FacSS is Professor of Law and Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Kent. She is a feminist socio-legal scholar with particular interests in family law and family justice processes, judging and the judiciary, and access to justice. She has published widely on these topics in both Australia (where she began her academic career) and the UK. With Anne Barlow, she was a member of the ESRC-funded Mapping Paths to Family Justice project, which resulted in their prize-winning book, Mapping Paths to Family Justice: Resolving Family Disputes in Neoliberal Times (Barlow, Hunter, Smithson and Ewing, 2017). Rosemary has been the Academic Member of the Family Justice Council since 2016 and leads the Council's Domestic Abuse Working Group. She is also a member of the Private Law Working Group and the Ministry of Justice's Expert Panel on Harm in the Family Courts. She is a former Chair of the SLSA and a former Council member of JUSTICE.Bregje Dijksterhuis is Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Product Description Does a justice system have a welfare function? If so, where does the boundary lie between justice and welfare, and where can the necessary resources and expertise be found? In a time of austerity, medical emergency, and limited public funding, this book explores the role of the family justice system and asks whether it has a function beyond decision-making in dispute resolution. Might a family justice system even help to prevent or minimise conflict as well as resolving dispute when it arises?The book is divided into 4 parts, with contributions from 22 legal scholars working across Europe, Australia, Argentina and Canada.- Part 1 looks at what constitutes a family justice system in different jurisdictions, and how a welfare element is included in the legal framework.- Part 2 looks at those engaged with a family justice system as professionals and users, and explores how far private ordering is encouraged in different countries.- Part 3 looks at new ways of working within a family justice system and raises the question of whether the move towards privatisation derives from the intrinsic value of individual autonomy and acceptance of responsibility in family disputes, or whether it is also a response to the increasing burden on the state of providing a welfare-minded family justice system.- Part 4 explores recent major changes of direction for the family justice systems of Australia, Argentina, Turkey, Spain, and Germany.