Contact rights for grandparents

On family breakdown, grandparents are often left out of the broken family cell. The typical situation is that the parent with whom the children live will want to ease the pain of separation as much as possible. He or she will try to cut all ties with the other spouse and his / her family. For the grandparents, this means losing contact with the grandchildren, or being denied it.

 Remedying loss of contact

1. The most desirable way forward, for its obvious cost and emotional advantages, is for the grandparents to speak to the parent with whom the children reside and make their case for contact. The idea is to reach an arrangement on visiting rights, which is mutually acceptable. If, for various reasons this approach proves impossible from the start or does not bring about the desired effect, grandparents can seek a remedy in court.  
2. The court has power to make a number of orders in favour of grandparents. However, in order to obtain such orders the grandparents must seek leave from the court to apply for them. This means that instead of having an automatic right to apply for an order, grandparents must first persuade the court of the merits of their proposed application.

In the recent Family Justice Review Interim Report (published on 31^st March 2011) the Chair of the Family Justice Review weighed the merits of a proposal to allow grandparents the automatic right to make a court application for contact. The conclusion reached was that the current system, albeit slow moving and cumbersome, offers the right kind of protection for the children of the family whose welfare is at the centre of any decision made by the court in Family proceedings. The position remains that grandparents should seek leave to make an application for contact and the court will assess it in the usual way, by taking into account:

1. the grandparents’ connection with the children (the general relationship of the parties, the frequency and length of previous visits etc)
2. the nature of the proposed application (the type of order sought and the reasons for seeking it)
3. the extent to which the proposed application would disrupt the children’s life or harm the children
4. additional criteria is applied for children who are being looked after by the Local Authority.