Justice: Comment sought on SALRC family law paper

A South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) discussion paper on alternative dispute resolution in family matters was released yesterday for comment by 31 January 2020. According to an accompanying media statement, the paper includes a draft Family Dispute Resolution Bill for regulating the processes of family mediation, family arbitration, collaborative dispute resolution and parenting co-ordination among others, notes Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch. 

It is envisaged that disputing parties would be required, by law, to attend ‘a standardised information and education programme’ and ‘mediation session’ before initiating a court process. This is noting that ‘more people are touched by family law disputes than by any other single area of the law’; the ‘limitations associated with adversarial litigation’; and that ‘mediation as an effective dispute resolution mechanism is becoming the preferred option’.

Other issues underpinning the paper include the longer-term implications of ‘the quality or adequacy of a family’s encounter with the justice system’; the financial and emotional burdens associated with SA’s ‘unstructured, dual and fragmented court system’; the ‘large numbers of unrepresented litigants’ struggling to use ‘a system designed for highly trained professionals’; and concomitant ‘mounting pressure’ on the courts from ‘unmet family legal needs’.

Legalbrief Today readers should note that, while the media statement calls for comment by 31 January 2019, the SALRC website features the correct date. Workshops on the draft Bill will be held countrywide.