The Ministry of Justice acts to protect Children of Divorcing Couples in Cross-border Separations and Divorce.

An important decision was announced yesterday by Sir Oliver Heald, the justice minister in the British government, it has been decided that it is in the UK's best interests to accept and opt into a proposal made by the European Commission to repeal and update the legal mechanism, known as the Brussels 11A regulation, which assists separating and divorcing couples settle disputes relating to both the custody of their children and their divorce when more than one country is involved.

Sir Oliver said that opting into the new proposal is the best choice for the UK, regardless of Brexit, as complex cross-border family law disputes affect UK citizens and should the Brussels 11A regulation be repealed prior to the UK's exit and the UK had failed to opt in, the UK could be in the position of having no EU instrument regulating such matters, regardless of the fact that the UK was still an EU member, as the previous regulation would be most likely to be considered inoperable.   Clearly failure to opt in could result in children's rights could be compromised and may affect their capacity to maintain contact with both parents if they live in different EU countries which is one of the main tenets of the existing regulations.

The new proposals aim to make it easier for judgments to be recognised and enforced in other member states, to create a more efficient system relating to child abduction proceedings and to provide clarity, as far as deadlines are concerned, for a number of procedures.  Importantly, the proposed new regulations removes the potential for a court to refuse to enforce a judgment on the basis that it would have applied different national rules as to whether a child should or should not have been heard in the proceedings.

Sir Oliver also said that the government has every intention of making sure that the new regulations do not impose additional burdens on the courts and authorities that have to use the new regulation and aims to limit any impact on domestic law.

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