Equal parental responsibility is not 50:50 sharing  

By Craig Sisterson  

A MAJOR Australian review of the practices, procedures, and laws that apply in the Australian federal family law courts has recommended that some provisions enacted as part of controversial 2006 family law reforms be amended or reconsidered in order to clarify areas of confusion, enable better identification of cases where there is a risk of violence, and bring the focus back to what is best for the children.
Australian Attorney-General Robert McClelland released Family Courts Violence Review, a 275-page report written by Professor Richard Chisholm, on 28 January. On the same day, he also released two other major reports (from the Australian Institute of Family Studies and the Family Law Council) examining the family law system and how the family law courts deal with cases involving family violence.
In the Family Courts Violence Review, Chisholm, a retired Family Court judge, noted there were few more difficult or important challenges for the family law system than dealing with cases where family violence was an issue.  
 

News

Partner-led pro bono programme supports those in need

By Darise Ogden

BELL GULLY’S commitment to helping those in need has seen it develop a formal, partner-led, pro bono programme that has it targeting a $1 million spend within three years. In addition to formalising its relationship with a number of worthy charities, the firm has also forged valuable relationships with three community law centres, at a time when the centres were facing what could have been one of the most destabilising years of their existence.
 

News

Australia considers introducing safe harbour for insolvent trading

By Darise Ogden

CONCERNS ARISING out of the Global Financial Crisis have led the Australian Government to consider introducing a “safe harbour” to protect companies seeking to reorganise outside of Australia’s external administration regime.
In a discussion paper released in January, the Government acknowledged that “placing a company into external administration may not always be the most appropriate method to [effect] a business rescue or to otherwise realise value for the benefit of the company’s creditors and members”. 
 

Features

Where angels fear to tread

Duncan Webb reviews Judicial Recusal: Principles, Process and Problems

In Judicial Recusal: Principles, Process and Problems (Hart Publishing, 2009), Grant Hammond has raised a number of hard questions about both the nature of the doctrine of judicial recusal and the proper process to be adopted when the Courts are called upon to address such an application.
Whether or not to make an application that a judge recuse him- or herself is one of the most difficult issues a lawyer can face. In some cases, the lawyer is righteously fearless and pitted against a judge who has erred in his or her professional duty.

Features

Making a difference in a small but valuable way

Based in Liberia, Zannah Johnston reveals the difficulties of developing the rule of law in a land almost destroyed by civil war

It is 3 pm in Monrovia’s Criminal Court E – a specialist court designed to deal exclusively with allegations of sexual violence, which are rife in post-conflict Liberia. Everyone is still finding their feet; the Court only started operating in mid-2009, in a country whose justice system is recovering from 14 years of civil war.
The prosecutor is resisting a motion to dismiss the charges against one of the multitude of prisoners currently detained in Monrovia Central Prison on rape charges.