As you are probably well aware, the Government has struggled to enforce child maintenance payments since time immemorial. This summer, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has taken further steps towards coherent enforcement and has published its response to its own consultation seeking views on a new child maintenance compliance and arrears strategy. The Government has said that these changes, along with previously announced proposals to allow deductions from joint bank accounts, will be introduced during autumn 2018. These measures will complement the existing spectrum of collection and enforcement powers, which are currently employed by the Child Maintenance Service…
When a child is taken by one parent to a foreign country away from their other parent, emotions will always run high and the law will often be complex. Recently the BBC attempted to explore the legal minefield that is international child abduction law by covering the story of Tracy, whose daughter had been taken by her father, a Czech citizen, from Bradford to the Czech Republic. In the programme the BBC suggested that: ‘Under the Hague Convention, which governs cases of child custody waged across international borders, a child’s base is considered to be the country in which he…
Our new partner, Jeremy Ford, brings to Cambridge Family Law Practice his experience in international family law. Earlier this year, Jeremy, at short notice, represented the children in a fact finding hearing in the High Court which tested the jurisdictional capacity of English law and which considered the best interests of four siblings who had been brought up in different jurisdictions. This case was reported as M v F & Ors [2018] EWHC 1720 (Fam) (16 February 2018) and is a good example of how the court addressed the issue of a litigant in person, who was an alleged perpetrator,…
A new report, published by Surrogacy UK, claims to dispel many of the myths concerning international surrogacy and brings into focus the practice of surrogacy in the UK. Surrogacy laws were first introduced about 30 years ago but society and the medical options available to couples have changed over the years since then. Many parents, medics and legal professionals (uncluding us at CFLP!) have concluded that the current surrogacy legislation, once thought to be ground breaking, is no longer ‘fit for purpose’ and doesn’t meet the needs of the surrogate, the parents and, most importantly, the baby. This new report…
