Judicial Criticism of Government Paper

The Rt Hon Lord Justice Wall criticised the government consultation paper Separate Representation of Children (CP 20/06) during a lecture in honour of Professor Mervyn Murch at Cardiff University on 30 November 2006, saying that, unlike the consultation paper on transparency which was well argued and persuasive, he had a very poor opinion" of the separate representation consultation paper and that he would say so in his response to it. His Lordship also disapproved of the government's treatment of the published research undertaken by Gillian Douglas, Mervyn, Claire Miles and Lesley Scanlan, Research into the operation of Rule 9.5 of the FPR 1991 (see [2006] Fam Law 385) saying that the research should not have been used to support the conclusion that party status and separate representation were not of benefit to all such children. For the full news story see January [2007] Fam Law.