Speeches by Mullan.

“Both Parents Matter also warned in its written evidence that repealing the presumption without a replacement framework risks”

““increasing uncertainty, delay, inconsistency and conflict”.”

“I accept the Minister’s point that to insist on that being the remedy is not necessarily what the defendant would want. We absolutely want to support defendants who have been through the process of a trial and a successful appeal. Where they could have had a Crown court trial with a jury, prior to the Government’s refo…”

“As I said at the outset, I take seriously the concerns of survivors—I want to be clear about that again. We had written evidence, including from Arajpreet Kaur, setting out how the presumption can be experienced by survivors as a pressure to accept contact arrangements that feel unsafe. That concern is absolutely legit…”

“I understand the Minister’s criticism that the defendant making the appeal may be perfectly content to have their case reheard in the magistrates, and insisting that an appeal be reheard in a jury trial gives no flexibility in that direction—that is a fair point. In response, we will not press amendments 55 to 57 to a …”

“Both Parents Matter also proposes what it calls a parental relationship test to be embedded in the welfare checklist, requiring the courts to consider the”

“On amendment 37, I have talked about the high rate of error and injustice that is being corrected by the current appeal mechanism, and I have talked about the unrepresented defendants who will have to navigate a more complex and subjective system, such as by reviewing transcripts. On the whole, we do not think that we …”

“and”

““Each parent’s willingness and capacity to support the child’s relationship with the other parent, where safe”.”

“It notes that those factors are already considered informally, but consistently codifying them would improve the quality of decision making without removing the principle of parental responsibility. On hearing those factors, I think all of us would say that, if a court went through that process properly, credibly and w…”

“As we have discussed in debates on previous amendments, the grounds of an appeal may very well relate to an allocation decision. Someone could successfully appeal on the basis that their trial should never have been heard by a magistrate and that they should have had a jury instead. Providing the option for a jury retr…”

““power is also never concentrated in the hands of one individual.””

“In summary, clause 7 represents a substantial recasting of appellate rights that prioritises administrative throughput over the correction of error. We should not trade away, without any evidence of abuse and with little evidence of meaningful efficiency savings, a safeguard that is successfully correcting mistakes in …”

“As we have heard, clause 15 clarifies the use of pre-recorded evidence for cross-examination and re-examination, which is often referred to as section 28 evidence. Our courts frequently rely on recorded testimony to spare witnesses the trauma of a live trial, so the rules governing the editing and presentation of that …”

“In the family courts, and indeed in society at large, it should not be controversial to say, “Where a child has two parents, I think the involvement of both those parents in that child’s life would normally further the welfare of that child, unless shown to be to the contrary.” My point is that the presumption in itsel…”

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“In the previous session, the Minister mentioned that she thought, for example, that the test of whether to allocate a trial would be subject to legal interpretation. That was an admission that the Minister made—which is probably self-evident.”

“Further to that point of order, Ms Jardine. I seek your guidance. We are discussing issues on which amendments were tabled, but we were unsuccessful with those amendments, so is it not perfectly legitimate for us to discuss all the consequences for the Bill that flow from the fact that the amendments were denied? The M…”

““the ability to appeal a decision to order a judge-alone trial as an important procedural safeguard that ensures that judge-alone trials are only ordered in appropriate circumstances and in line with statutory criteria. A significant problem with not permitting appeals on decisions to order judge-alone trials is that i…”