Family Law

Children

The law believes that parents are best placed to decide what is best for their children and courts will only make decisions if that is necessary. When parents separate, decisions usually need to be made about where a child should live (residence), whether parents should share the care of their child (shared residence), about what days and times a child should spend with a parent (contact). Sometimes decisions need to be made about other specific matters relating to a child – what school he should attend, what surname she should have, and so on (specific issue order), or an order preventing one parent doing something in relation to a child might be necessary – such as moving to a different area or country (interdict). In deciding any of these, the welfare of the child is most important; and, depending on the child’s age and maturity, account should be taken of the child’s views.

Sometimes both parents have parental rights and responsibilities, sometimes the father does not.

If parents cannot agree the arrangements for the children, they often prefer mediation or collaborative law rather than court proceedings. Sometimes negotiating through solicitors will lead to an agreement about the children.

However, if the other parent is refusing to communicate with you or is refusing to allow you to see the children (or is doing something which you do not believe is best for the children), then you can ask the court to look into the matter urgently. This will be done by a written application to the court. Usually the court will then fix a child welfare hearing, which is a private court hearing that both parents attend. The sheriff will listen to both parties and their solicitors, and will make an interim decision about what is best for the children.

Children’s Hearings

In some circumstances, the Children’s Hearing system will make decisions about your children. This happens when the social work department or another agency believe that you are not able to care for your children meantime. Sometimes this means that the children will continue to live with you, at other times the children will live with another family member or foster carers. You can ask the Childrens’ Hearing to fix another hearing to make a change to the arrangements. You can ask the court to decide if you think the Children’s Hearing has made a mistake. You might be a grandparent, or an aunt or uncle and want to be involved in the Children’s Hearing decisions – sometimes you are entitled to do that, or to apply to do that, sometimes not. We can advise you in relation to all of these things.

Adoption

You may wish to oppose an application by someone else to adopt your child, or you may want to adopt a child. We can advise you.

Surrogacy – Parenting Orders

If you have a child by a surrogate mother, the law allows you to apply for a court order granting you parental rights and responsibilities – and to formally register you as the parent of your child. We can advise you.

Kinship Care