FAMILY COURTS

Hokitika Guardian, 10 March 1932, Page 3

FAMILY COURTS

DOMESTIC RELATIONS. __ ALTERNATIVE TO DIVORCE. LONDON, January 14. Lord Snell, who has made a careful study of the Courts of Domestic, Relations established in many American towns, gave ap interesting account of them at a luncheon of the Howard League for Penal Reform. It will be remembered that he Ims for several years introduced into the House <n Commons a Bill to establish similar courts here.

| In England, he said, the position .of | the family was not now so well estaoj lished as it was a generation ago. , Subtle influences were working to undermine it. Those who regarded tne family as the basis of British ci.vild.sa-, j tion were alarmed at what was going on, for there was nothing to take rts place. In England there was apparently no way of dealing with the family as a whole, because they dealt only with individuals, and if trouble came to families they went to the police courts and were there treated as individual cases. There was a rough-and-ready method of settling difficulties which arose. Another rough-and-ready way was divorce. Judges in the Divorce Court were only concerned .to establish certain evidence. If the laws relating to marriage had been violated, then the person concerned was entitled by law to a certain remedy. ,

BUILDING UP THE FAMILY. In America two years ago he examined a good many domestic or family courts, and found that they did not o'xist to punish the individual who had done wrong or assess blame. Their primary function was to sustain and build up the family when it looked like breaking down. Twenty years’ experience in America had shown that social workers and nearly all the churches regarded the courts as an essential feature of civil, life. The money for them was voted each year by the municipality. The judges were specially selected for their understanding and tact.

The procedure in America was that an applicant came privately to a private room to be received by an official, usually a. woman, who tried to find the real cause of the trouble. If the trouble were due to physicial causes or poverty the court could refer urgent cases to hospitals or philanthropic societies. The other partner, husband or wife, would be invited to come privately to give his or her side of the story and make suggestions and, if advisable, an attempt would be made to bring the two together again. In many States as a result of these private conferences 73 per cent, of the applicants were dealt with in this way and never entered the court, and eighteen months later 67 per cent, of the cases had proved more or less successful.

NO AUSTERITY. When cases were reported to the judge he might decide to see them privately and might prevent them from going further. It did not follow that in every •'case he tried to reunite the family. “In my judgment,” said Lord Snell, “it can never he right for people who are likely to bring diseased children into the world to be condemned by law to live together. The judge can recommend alimony, winch is always paid into the banking department of the court, to be paid at the judge’s decision, and he may hind a. man to pay any certain amount each week. There is no austerity in the court, .hut in those I saw judge and applicant talked to each other with friendly informality. The cases are followed up by officers of the court, who call at the people’s homes to see how things are going on and to help.”

Lord Snell said he thought that England offered a much better field for work of this kind than America, where the jumble of races and languages presented difficulties. “If there were some way of dealing with family difficulties without the rough and tumble surgical value of the police court it might have some social value to the community as a whole as well as to the individual.”