Joanna Miles

Family law : text, cases, and materials

1. Introduction to Family Law 2. Adult family relationships in law 3. Family property and finances during relationships 4. Domestic violence 5. Ending relationships: divorce and separation 6. Financial provision for children 7. Financial provision between adults on relationship breakdown 8. Fundamental principles in the law relating to children 9. Becoming a legal parent and the consequences of legal parenthood 10. Parental responsibility 11. Private disputes over children 12. Child protection: the public law on children 13. Adoption

Standing under the Human Rights Act 1998: Theories of Rights Enforcement & the Nature of Public Law Adjudication

The Human Rights Act enables applicants in judicial review and other legal proceedings to complain that a public authority has violated a Convention right, but only if they are “victims” of that violation. The victim standing test was adopted from the Strasbourg institutions without any consideration being given in Parliament to the appropriateness of such a test in the domestic context. It is argued that the suitability of a particular standing rule for a given jurisdiction cannot properly be evaluated until a theory explaining the juristic function of standing rules has been identified and articulated. Two theoretical aspects of standing rules in public law cases are suggested here, in order to provide a framework in which to assess the appropriateness of the victim test for judicial review cases raising Human Rights Act arguments.

Marriage and Divorce in the Supreme Court and the Law Commission: For Love or Money?

The case note considers the impact of the Supreme Court decision in Radmacher v Granatino regarding pre-nuptial and other classes of nuptial agreement, together with recent proposals of the Law Commission for reform of the law relating to marital property agreements generally. It explores in particular the question of what, if any, core obligations of marriage cannot or should not be excludable by agreement.

Mediation, financial remedies, information provision and legal advice: the post-LASPO conundrum*

Abstract The near-total collapse in numbers of solicitors providing legal advice and assistance to publicly-funded clients attempting to settle private family law issues through mediation since the legal aid reforms implemented in 2013 raises important questions about how, if at all, clients in mediation can receive legal information and advice other than from lawyers in financial cases following divorce. This article explores, in a preliminary way, this aspect of mediation practice, drawing on small-scale qualitative data from a study conducted shortly prior to the legal aid reforms concerning the settlement of such cases. It explores how mediators then approached their (permissible) function of providing clients with legal information and how they dealt with cases where they felt that the proposed outcome was particularly unfair to one party or unlikely to be endorsed by a court, and asks how mediation practice – and legal practice – may come under pressure to change in this brave new world.

MIND THE GAP… : CHILD PROTECTION, STATUTORY INTERPRETATION AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT

“The problem is more with what the [Children] Act does not say than with what it does”: Hale L.J., Court of Appeal at para. [50]. Therein lay the problem addressed in Re S (Minors) (Care Order: Implementation of Care Plan) [2002] UKHL 10, [2002] 2 W.L.R. 720; reversing in part [2001] EWCA Civ 757, [2001] 2 F.L.R. 582. This case involves key issues in child protection under the Children Act 1989 and provides further guidance regarding the courts’ interpretation of legislation under the Human Rights Act 1998.