Lawyer Monthly - December 2021 Edition

DEC 2021 | WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM traditional family cohort, gender roles and responsibilities. The current procedures of litigation, coupled with federal and provincial statutes, set the stage for the perfect storm for continued family entanglement in conflict where children end up as collateral damage, since none of the Acts provide statutes or guidelines to support families and reduce the risk of hostility and continued conflict after litigation has ended and are inundated with confrontational language and blame assignment. Typically, neither bar nor bench has much training in the sensitive psychosocial implications of family restructuring after separation or the constructive management of family conflict. Nor are they particularly well- equipped to handle delicate issues like addictions, attachment disruption or allegations of abuse with any efficiency, which are more often the case the foundations for which family law motions are built upon. Alberta was the first to abandon conflict- laden terms like “custody” and “access” in 2005 in favour of presumptions of parental guardianship and child- centred language addressing “parental responsibilities” and “parenting time.” British Columbia has also followed suit in What are the issues that currently face family law in Canada? Has the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this in a significant way? Are there other factors involved? As a modern, 21st century society, we need to recognise that the current family judicial system needs to be updated. In many cases it is inefficient, time- consuming and destructive to families and children. There are deep structural problems that persist in how our justice system handles family disputes and I feel something must be done, given that the need is urgent and is only growing worse. Our current judicial system is predicated on an adversarial approach developed in the Middle Ages that makes perfect sense when resolving disputes of the arm’s-length parties to accidents, or shareholders’ grievances. However, this adversarial and Arcadian mechanism for dispute resolution has disastrous implications for family members with children who must maintain a functioning relationship with each other into the indefinite future. There are two factors that contribute to these implications. First is the procedure MY LEGAL LIFE - CHERYL CORDEIRO Reforming the Family Judicial System in Canada The adversarial nature of family law often places a heavy emotional burden on the families it is meant to serve – a burden which has only grown as litigation becomes more time-consuming and the statutes that govern it begin to show their age. Below, we hear qualified arbitrator Cheryl Cordeiro’s thoughts on the obstacles facing Canadian families and the benefits that alternative dispute resolution can bring to what is all too often a hostile process. for which family law disputes must follow to litigate a resolution, and second are the antiquated laws and statutes that are applied to these cases. Our ligation system relies heavily on Family Law and Divorce Acts, which were written in the mid 1980-1990s. Resolutions for disputes of custody, access, support payments and family net worth were written with an ideology, knowledge and reasoning that is over 30 years old. Since the construction of these Acts, we have seen a magnitude of shifts within the “ The current procedures of litigation, coupled with federal and provincial statutes, set the stage for the perfect storm for continued family entanglement in conflict. ” 25