Require family court cases with domestic abuse issues to be heard by a judge

[Thelnebriati]

You don’t need any formal qualifications to be a Magistrate.
Victims of Domestic Abuse have to rely upon people who receive basic training, and legal advisors, making decisions that affect child arrangement orders possibly placing children in danger. These cases should be referred so they can be heard by a Judge in court.
Findings are being made by Lay Magistrates daily in Family Court proceedings yet Lay Magistrates only have to be in receipt of 3.5 days basic training, some private study, and then assigned a 'mentor'.
Magistrates are not necessarily trained in victim behaviour after abuse, ability to recognize a pattern of abusive behaviour and recognizing controlling and coercive behaviour.
I would like the Government to ensure that family court cases where domestic violence is an issue are only heard in court by a Judge.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/616008

Just speaking as a magistrate - we have a lot more than three days of training and this includes specific and separate training on domestic abuse as we see so much of it in court. Magistrates who sit in the family court have further additional training again. This may not be the same for every area though, I can only say this is the case for where I sit.

From what I've seen on here, getting a judge sitting on your case in the family courts is not necessarily a guarantee that they will recognise abusive behaviour, sadly.

I dont disagree with you and wish the petitioner had included something about more training for judges.

But I don't disagree that there are a lot of problems with the family courts - as there are with courts in general. The justice system is woefully underfunded and has been for a long time. People are (rightly) very passionate about the NHS but the courts are on their knees and it means that people aren't getting the justice they should.

Can I ask why magistrates in family court will say they don't have the jurisdiction and pass the case to a district judge?

I can't answer that one I'm afraid as I don't sit in the family courts myself. With normal criminal courts magistrates can decline jurisdiction if the offence is too serious for us to deal with (so that's if it is categorised as indictable only, eg rape or murder, or if our sentencing powers are insufficient as the most we can give someone for a single offence is 6 months' imprisonment). So it may be something similar in the family courts where it depends how serious a case is.