Alex Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that judges and other decision-makers have appropriate knowledge and training on issues relating to child arrangements orders made in the family court in cases in which there is a history of domestic abuse.

Caroline Dinenage

Under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, responsibility for judicial training rests with the Lord Chief Justice and this responsibility is exercised through the Judicial College. Accordingly, the independence of the judiciary means that Government Ministers do not intervene with regard to the content of judicial training.

The Judicial College has advised that judges, magistrates and their Legal Advisers have all received specific training on domestic violence issues and were trained in the new Child Arrangements Programme and Practice Direction 12J as part of the Family Justice Review reforms in 2014.