Eminent jurist and former Chief Justice, the Hon Elizabeth Evatt AC, said the proposed merger of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court (FCC) “will lead to undesirable outcomes for children and families”.

“The Family Court was designed purposely as a world-leading, specialist, standalone court to deal only with family law matters, with the support of a dedicated multidisciplinary team of counsellors and mediators. Its standalone nature is one of its greatest attributes, providing protections for vulnerable people in need of family law assistance,” the former Chief Justice said.

“Merging the Family Court into a generalist court will undermine the integrity and the structural specialisation of the Family Court. The impact of losing this institutional specialisation is not properly understood, and has been downplayed.

“The increasing number of cases in which issues of family violence and child abuse are raised has led to an even greater need today for family law jurisdiction to be vested exclusively in specialised judges who can give their full attention to the needs of family law clients without being diverted to exercise other unrelated jurisdictions.”

Ms Evatt said the current bill undermines this principle, is not in the public interest and should not be enacted.

“Instead, a lower division should be added within the Family Court, made up of the FCC’s family law jurisdiction and some of its judges as suggested by the NSW Bar Association’s Family Court 2.0 model,” Ms Evatt recommended.

The Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC, who was the second Chief Justice of the Family Court from 1988 to 2004, following the Hon Elizabeth Evatt AC, said that he fully “support[s] and endorse[s] her remarks about the inadvisability of this proposal”.

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“It is unbelievable that the government would propose the dissolution of a Federal Superior Court in this fashion without the most careful and searching public inquiry and without carrying out significant research and without consulting the many experts in this field,” Mr Nicholson said.

“What those proposing this merger do not seem to understand is that family law is complex and nuanced, and it is not to be judged by the output by numbers of cases as if the courts are sausage machines. Throughput is important, but so is the quality of the decisions made.”

Mr Nicholson said cases can be extremely complex and require specialist knowledge of the type that has always been available in the Family Court, which has provided leadership in the proper interpretation and principles to be applied by other courts with family law jurisdiction.

“Many involve the determination of important issues relating to children, including their rights and need for protection, not only from individuals but also from government in its myriad forms,” he said.

“Many also involve problems of family violence and the effects of it upon the parties and their children. Others involve extremely complicated property disputes either alone or combined with the above issues and requiring other important specialist levels of legal knowledge, while understanding the important family issues that may be affected by the decision.

“The Family Court is a court that has been envied throughout the common law world and its judgments have often been cited with approval by the courts of many countries including New Zealand, the UK, Canada, the USA and others. Its significance as the only specialist Family Court set up as a superior Court of Record and particularly that of its Appeal Division cannot be overemphasised.”

The former Chief Justices have joined more than 110 stakeholders on the front line of the family law system in calling on the Parliament to vote against the merger bill as it will increase cost, delay and stress for families.

On Friday, 20 November, the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee released its report on the bill to merge the two courts and recommended that it proceed. Attorney-General Christian Porter said the government would seek to progress the bill as a priority during the next sitting fortnight.

Labor has vowed to block the bill, with shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus stating that the coalition had ignored more than 110 experts who warned the proposal would harm vulnerable children and families.

“The Morrison government’s radical proposal to effectively abolish the Family Court is a destructive and damaging move which will put Australian families at greater risk in their time of greatest need,” he said.

Law Council president Pauline Wright said “no amendment to the bill can cure what remains a flawed and dangerous proposal without evidentiary foundation”.

“Claims the merger will allow up to 8,000 cases to be resolved each year cannot be substantiated and are based on PWC’s discredited six-week desktop review,” she said.

“This is a terrible gamble with the lives of children and families. The merger would collapse the Family Court into the lower level, generalist FCC, which already struggles through chronic under-resourcing and under-funding to manage less complex family matters alongside its growing migration workload.”

CEO of Community Legal Centres Australia Nassim Arrage said “more than three in every 10 people seeking help from community legal centres experience family violence”.

“In our experience, moving away from a specialist family court model would be a retrograde step and expose survivors of family violence to unnecessary risk,” Mr Arrage said.

“Any reform should strengthen a system, not lead to the diminution of specialisation.”

Women’s Legal Services Australia spokesperson Angela Lynch AM said the opposition to the government’s proposed merger of the family courts is centred on ensuring the safety and best interests of the child and the safety of adult victim-survivors of family violence in family law proceedings.

“Retaining and strengthening specialisation in family law and family violence through a standalone specialist family court is essential,” Ms Lynch said.

“Family violence best practice responses worldwide recommend enhancing, not undermining, family violence specialisation in courts. Despite amendments, the federal government’s proposed model does not achieve this.”