This book examines the changing role of law in resolving family disputes by investigating the contradictory directions of family justice reform.

Family Law sets up a number of dichotomies, including between public/private, vulnerability/autonomy and law/non-law. While these dichotomies are useful for law, are sometimes real and often antinomic, there are also circumstances in which they blur into each other and where the boundaries between them shift. The shifting boundaries are the product of the redefinition and reconstruction of categories such that public/private becomes court/non-court and law/non-law becomes justice/therapy, and blurring occurs between public and private and between autonomy and vulnerability.

We see these processes of redefinition and resetting of boundaries as linked and as illustrations of the ways in which the FJS (Family Justice Service) rationalises removing more and more family disputes from the realm of law. The FJS seems by these changes to be less about traditional ideas of justice as disputes are being hived off to processes that are not transparent, not accountable and normatively diffuse. As the category of non-law/NCDR expands while becoming more firmly embedded with the Family Justice System, we see also an implicit redefinition of justice and we question the effect this redefinition has for weaker parties, most often women and children.

Alison Diduck is Professor of Law at University College London, UK.
Felicity Kaganas is Professor of Law at Brunel University London, UK.