Canadian family law judges offer expertise
In the first conference of its kind to be held in this country, it is expected the judges will encourage the Irish judiciary to look at new ways of handling family law cases.
The Canadian-Irish Judicial Conference, which will be held in October, is being organised by award winning family law graduate Roisín O’Shea, who was granted special permission by the Minister for Justice to attend in camera cases to carry out research for her PhD.
Following this, and a timely meeting with the Chief Justice of Canada, Justice Beverly McLachlan, Ms O’Shea travelled to Ontario last year where she saw first hand how the courts operate.
“The Canadian family law courts operate to a settlement focused model, the antithesis of our system,” Ms O’Shea said. “One judge said to me that it sounded like our family law system was where Ontario was 35 years ago.”
In Ontario more than 90% of family law cases are settled through state-provided mediators. There is no blanket in camera rule, but cases are still anonymous and in camera can be used in sensitive cases.
Ms O’Shea said the reform which had taken place in Canada was judge-led and this was a real opportunity for change.
“This could be an extraordinary opportunity for us to see that the wheel need not be re-invented, and may enable us to circumvent some of the learning curve that the Ontario courts went through over the last couple of decades.”
Ms O’Shea, who began studying family law after her own marriage came to an end in 2004, said it was imperative the system here changed to make the process less adversarial and more focused on mediation.
