Payne v Payne - The Long Goodbye Continues

As someone whose life is unduly preoccupied with thinking about relocation law, I find it fascinating that the English courts cannot bring themselves to say, in straightforward terms, what we on the sidelines have known for so long - Payne v Payne has had its day.

For anyone not familiar with Payne, it's a 2001 Court of Appeal decision which places considerable focus on the fact that the applicant was the mother, and that she was the child's primary carer. Looking back over the earlier authorities, those facts were almost always true, and so it is perhaps unsurprising that the court's guidance about how to approach such cases in the future took this as being inevitable.

In the 15 years since the case was decided, much has changed, and the reality is that there is a far greater range of post-separation care arrangements on the ground now than there was when Payne was decided. Consequently, when thinking about a question as important as whether a child should be taken to live in another country or not, the relevant considerations are now also more varied, and - crucially - the guidance stemming from Payne may or may not be especially helpful.

The Court of Appeal said as much in the 2011 decision of K v K, but the majority judges (Black and Moore-Bick LJJ) were clearly of the view that the answer did not involve abandoning Payne. On the contrary, Black LJ stressed that Payne remained helpful, but that judges were required to use it as general guidance, not as a straitjacket - the weight given to its various factors would be varied depending on the facts of the particular case being decided.

I have long been sceptical of this approach. In an article published last autumn, Edward Devereux and I suggested that it was unrealistic to expect judges to make these kinds of adjustments on a case-by-case basis, when the guidance that they were being asked to adjust started from such a one-sided position.

And so it has come to pass. The latest Court of Appeal decision on international relocaiton - Re F (International Relocation Cases) - over-turns an experienced Circuit Judge's decision because she focused too much on the Payne criteria and not enough on an overall assessment of welfare. Well, don't say you weren't warned.

In its latest comments on Payne, the Court of Appeal has reached new extremes of contortion. We are told that "it would seem odd indeed for this court to use guidance which, out of the context which was intended, is redolent with gender based assumptions as to the role and relationships of parents with a child" (para 18). We are told that the questions asked by Payne "may or may not be relevant" (para 18). We are told that "[s]elective or partial legal citation from Payne without any wider legal analysis is likely to be regarded as an error of law" (para 27).

Payne is also criticised for its lack of focus on the child's views about the decision or, putting it more broadly, its lack of consideration of how the child should participate (paras 18 and 40). It is also impliedly criticised for its focus only on the proposals of the parent seeking to relocate, since in Re F the court emphasises the need to look holistically at the available options from a welfare perspective, and not to approach the options in a linear manner.

So all around, this seems to me to lead to the obvious conclusion that Payne is no longer a useful authority. So why won't they just say so? Let's put poor Payne out of its misery and start again with some sensible guidance which can be applied to all relocation cases without confusing hard-pressed trial judges and requiring unnecessary appeals.

Prorogue No More?

Prorogation of jurisdiction might not sound like a terribly sexy topic for a blog post, but the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-436/13 E v B (1 October 2014) is rather important for family lawyers with an international element to their practices.

 

Proro-what?

 

I guess the first question many readers might have is: what is prorogation?

 

This all relates to the question of when a court has jurisdiction (power) to deal with a case when there is an international aspect to the matter. In children cases, the normal test is simple: the court that has jurisdiction is the court of the country in which the child is "habitually resident". Prorogation is about an alternative basis for jurisdiction, and we use it to refer to the courts of one country gaining (or retaining) jurisdiction in a dispute where another country's courts would otherwise be dealing with the case.

 

Its application in international child law comes from Article 12 of Council Regulation (EC) 2201/2003, commonly known as the Brussels II Revised Regulation, the relevant parts of which read:

 

"Article 12

Prorogation of jurisdiction

 3. The courts of a Member State shall also have jurisdiction in relation to parental responsibility ... where:

(a) the child has a substantial connection with that Member State, in particular by virtue of the fact that one of the holders of parental responsibility is habitually resident in that Member State or that the child is a national of that Member State;

and

(b) the jurisdiction of the courts has been accepted expressly or otherwise in an unequivocal manner by all the parties to the proceedings at the time the court is seised and is in the best interests of the child."

So there are a number of elements here which determine when a court of one country has jurisdiction outside the normal rule that jurisdiction comes with habitual residence:

1. the child has a substantial connection with the country, e.g. by being a national of that country or by one parent living there;
2. the parties to the proceedings (usually the parents) accept the jurisdiction expressly or in an unequivocal manner;
3. their acceptance is 'at the time the court is seised' (meaning when the court proceedings start); and
4. it is in the child's best interests.

The second of those limbs was considered in passing by the Supreme Court in a case called Re I [2009] UKSC 10. In that case, Lady Hale suggested that is was likely that the second limb would mean either that the parties accepted the court's jurisdiction at the time the case started, or that they had previously expressly indicated that they would accept it (para 35). However, that issue did not matter in Re I, and anyway it is a question of European law and so only the Court of Justice of the EU can determine it authoritatively.

 

And that brings us to E v B.

The facts


The case arose from a preliminary reference from the English Court of Appeal. In short, the parties had lived in Spain where their child, S, was born in 2006. Legal proceedings took place there, the effect of which was (in the old English terms) that the mother had residence and the father contact. This position was reached following an agreement in July 2010, which was incorporated into a court judgment in Spain in October 2010.

 

The mother presumably then moved to England, though that minor detail appears not to be mentioned in the CJEU judgment, since in December 2010 the mother applied to the English court for orders which would reduce the amount of contact that the father had. In January 2011, the father responded by seeing orders in the English court to enforce the existing Spanish orders. At the subsequent hearing in December 2011, the mother "acknowledged that ... she had prorogued the jurisdiction of the [Spanish court] under Article 12(3) of [Regulation (EC) 2201/2003]" (para 21). The October 2010 order was therefore enforced in the English court.

 

The mother then brought proceedings in Spain, seeking to transfer jurisdiction to England. The Spanish court ruled that there were no live proceedings in that court, and therefore that there was nothing to transfer. In June 2012, the mother applied again to the English court, and this time the High Court Judge determined that the English court did indeed have jurisdiction to hear her application. The father appealed, and the Court of Appeal made the preliminary reference to the CJEU.


The decision


The CJEU held that the question of whether a court had jurisdiction had to be answered (a) in relation to the specific proceedings in question (para 40), and (b) at the time the court is seised, i.e. "when the document instituting the proceedings is lodged with the court" (para 38). (Also, regardless of that, "jurisdiction ... must be determined, above all, in the best interests of the child" (para 45).)


The upshot of that is:

"that a prorogation of jurisdiction ... is valid only in relation to the specific proceedings for which the court whose jurisdiction is prorogued is seised and that that jurisdiction comes to an end ... following the final conclusion of the proceedings from which the prorogation of jurisdiction derives" (para 49)

In other words, the parties can agree that an existing case shall remain with the courts in country X even if the child moves and becomes habitually resident in country Y; or the parties can agree, at the moment that new proceedings are proposed, that they will accept that country X will deal with it even though the child is habitually resident in country Y; but, crucially, the parties cannot agree in advance that they will accept jurisdiction in country X for potential future proceedings.


Why does that matter?


Well, on the basis of the Supreme Court's comments in Re I, it has become common in relocation cases for the parents to agree that, when the child relocates abroad, the English courts will retain jurisdiction for some period of time (up to two years is common). The upshot of E v B is that those agreements are entirely worthless.


The parties can agree that ongoing proceedings will remain in England, but as soon as those proceedings end - which they usually do as soon as the relocation order is formally made - then prorogation is no longer effective. If there are future proceedings needed (which are fresh proceedings - you cannot usually revise old proceedings once they finish), the parties can then agree to accept the English courts as having jurisdiction - but the parent who remained in England after the relocation cannot rely on an earlier agreement, no matter how clearly stated, as the basis of jurisdiction later.


For those involved in relocation disputes, whether as lawyers or as parents, this decision is of high importance.

Thanks to Janet Broadley of Bindmans Solicitors

 for bringing this judgment to my attention.

Listing Relocation Cases

For some time, colleagues at the Bar and I have been sharing concerns that under the draft guidelines for case allocation in the new Family Court, almost all international relocation cases will be listed in front of District Judges.

The draft guidelines put cases into three categories:

1. cases involving proposed moves to countries which are not signatories to the 1980 Hague Convention on child abduction -- High Court Judge

2. cases involving proposed moves to countries which are signatories to the 1980 Hague Convention -- District Judge

3. cases involving proposed moves to countries which are signatories to the 1980 Hague Convention but which are unusually complex in legal or factual terms -- District Judge or, exceptionally, Circuit Judge.

This allocation marks a dramatic change from just a few short years ago. As late as 1993, it was being said that all international relocation cases should be reserved to High Court Judges or, if necessary, senior Circuit Judges sitting in the High Court. In 2009, Lord Justice Wall in the Court of Appeal said that Circuit Judges would normally hear international relocation cases, and that District Judges should hear them only if the judge had special experience to make him or her suited to such cases. My research on relocation cases in 2012 showed then that about 20% of international relocation cases were being heard by District Judges. So finding that almost all relocation cases should now, by default, be listed in front of DJs is quite a turn around.

Why does it matter, you might ask. Put shortly, there are two concerns. One is simply that international relocation cases are actually very complex. Even a "straightforward" case involves the potential for a serious, long-lasting changes to the child's relationship with one parent (usually the father) if the relocation is allowed, and a serious restriction on the freedom of the other parent (usually the mother) if the application is refused. There are also legal complexities with making on-going contact orders which are effective after a relocation, and real care and expertise is needed to make sure that such orders are worth the paper that they're written on.

The second concern is about appeals. Child law cases heard by District Judges are, ordinarily, heard on appeal by Circuit Judges, whereas cases that start in front of Circuit Judges are heard on appeal in the Court of Appeal. The safeguard of having a potential for review by the senior judges of the Court of Appeal is very important -- to me, almost essential -- when dealing with such major decisions as international relocations.

Anyway, these concerns appear to have been making their way through the system, and a well-placed source (I want to say "a leading member of the sieve", but I'm not sure how many people would get that reference...) has told me that the matter is now being re-considered. I for one would certainly favour a system that gave these important cases a default allocation to a more senior level of tribunal, with the possibility for genuinely straightforward cases to be moved down if that seemed appropriate to the gateway judge.

Relocation Disputes: Approaches in England and New Zealand

It's just a couple of weeks now until the publication of Relocation Disputes: Law and Practice in England and New Zealand (Hart Publishing, pictured). "Finally", you say, "the ideal stocking-filler present that I've been waiting for!" I'm fully supportive of that idea, so for those who aren't tempted enough by the lovely Edward Hopper on the cover ("Route 6 Eastham", 1941), here's a little more about the book.

This book started life in 2007, when I began my doctorate at the University of Oxford. I was interested in looking at how the family justice system deals with cases involving children, and a colleague had suggested that relocation disputes might make an interesting case study. Relocation cases, which I've written about here a couple of times before - see here, here and here for the main posts - are disputes between separated parents where one of them (usually but not always the mother) seeks to take the child to live somewhere else, and the other parent objects to that proposal. The 'somewhere else' can be a relatively short distance away, such as the other side of a large city or another nearby town, but in terms of cases which reach the attention of the law they more commonly involve longer distances, and in particular they often involve proposed international moves.

Relocation cases are commonly thought by judges and lawyers to be amongst the most difficult cases that they deal with between parents. While there are exceptions, in general what you see in a relocation dispute is a conflict between two very good, very committed parents, both of whom have legitimate desires and plans regarding their children. The legal framework governing the resolution of these disputes is actually quite straightforward in most jurisdictions. In England and Wales, s 1 of the Children Act 1989 makes the child's welfare the court's paramount considerations, while in New Zealand s 4 of the Care of Children Act 2004 makes the child's welfare and best interests the paramount consideration. The difficulty and complexity stems from the fact that we have to work out what that actually means in the relocation context.

In order to do that, I started by going back through the reported cases. The first, a case called Hunt v Hunt, comes from 1884, but the modern principles began to be developed by the English Court of Appeal in 1970, in a case called Poel v Poel. This case guided the courts in both England and New Zealand for many years. It was abandoned by the New Zealand courts in 1995, with their Court of Appeal decision in Stadniczenko v Stadniczenko, and was superceded in England by the 2001 Court of Appeal decision of Payne v Payne. In Chapter 2 of the book, I look at these shifting patterns in the case law, and at how the legal principles evolved and were interpreted and re-interpreted over the years.

But cases in appeal courts and in the official law reports can only tell you so much. I wanted to know what was really happening on the ground, and how those professionals who have to use the law in their work saw it. So I set off and interviewed trial judges, barristers, solicitors and welfare advisers who were experienced in relocation cases in both England and New Zealand. The views and experiences of the 44 men and women who talked to me as part of that study form the core of this book.

Chapter 3 contains the real comparison between the two jurisdictions and their quite different ideas about what 'welfare' means in the relocation context. I gave all my participants three identical case studies about different types of relocation disputes and asked them to tell me what factors they thought would be important in coming to a decision, and what the likely outcome would be if the case went to court. The enormous variation in the approaches of participants in the two jurisdictions was amazing, and the 'classic relocation case', involving a hypothetical child called Tom whose mother wanted to move to America with her new American husband, was the one that showed up the differences in approach most starkly.

From there, I focus in on the two jurisdictions in turn, asking practitioners to talk about their general experiences of relocation law and to evaluate the positive and negative aspects of their system. These discussions reveal a wealth of information about the practical working of the law, and about lessons that can be learnt both in terms of working well within the existing law and in terms of possible law reform.

Reform of the law is indeed the focus of the final chapter of the book. Relocation is one of the most controversial areas of family law, and in many jurisdictions around the world there is discussion about whether they can be dealt with better. I review a number of possible suggestions that have been put forward, and end with a discussion of an idea of mine which comes out the study.

Obviously I can't tell you if it's any good, but Mr Justice Peter Jackson of the High Court in London says in a review for the cover that the book "holds up a mirror to what we do in relocation cases, and draws a map of where we might want to go. More than that, we see how lawyers and judges think about hard decisions, and how studies of this kind can help us think more clearly."

--
Relocation Disputes: Law and Practice 
in England and New Zealand is published 
by Hart Publishing on 17 December 2013.

Relocation Research - first paper now available

In my last post, I published the Executive Summary from my new paper, "Relocation Disputes in England and Wales: First Findings from the 2012 Study". The full paper is now available to download free of charge from the Social Science Research Network.

There are two short points I'd like to make about this paper. The first is that it's a working paper. I wanted to get the first findings out as soon as they were ready because this is an important topic, but there's a lot more work to do. So while all of the statistical analysis that is reported in the paper is correct and final, the overall project isn't finished yet, and there will be more information feeding into the overall analysis and conclusions.

The second point is that this paper does not make any comment about legal policy. A lot of people dislike the English law's approach to relocation disputes and there is a respectable view that it needs to be reformed. Indeed, I have made that argument myself on this blog (see here and here), in my academic writing,* and as part of the legal team who sought to appeal a relocation case to the Supreme Court a year ago. That is an important question that needs to be addressed - but it is not the question that I am addressing in this paper. The first thing to do when considering change is to find out more about what is happening now. This paper is about that - it tells us about what the reality of relocation law is in the courts and lawyers' offices of England and Wales. We can add that information to the debate about what if any change needs to be made, but the research does not by itself answer that question. Consequently, no one should read this paper to find out what I think about law reform, but the fact that I do not talk about that in this paper does not mean that I don't have views on change.



* At the moment, a lot of academic writing is difficult for the general public to obtain. Some of my work is on the SSRN network (see here and here), though not all if it is available without charge (this is a policy of the journals, not of mine); I am happy to provide copies on request.

Relocation Disputes: First Findings from the 2012 Study: Executive Summary

This post contains the Executive Summary of a research paper from my study of relocation cases in England and Wales. The full paper is now available to download without charge from the Social Science Research Network.

  

Relocation disputes are cases between separated parents where one of them proposes to move to a new geographic location with their child and the other parent objects to the proposals. This Research Paper reports the first set of findings from a major study of relocation cases in England and Wales based on cases decided in 2012. The data used come from 118 first instance court decisions in relocation cases (96 proposed international moves and 22 proposed moves within the UK) – the CC sample – and 187 responses from family lawyers to a research questionnaire about relocation disputes –the RQ sample. We use statistical techniques to analyse those cases and investigate patterns of outcomes.

Part 1 | Relocation Law in England and Wales: A Summary

The law governing relocation disputes, while different for proposed international moves and for those proposals involving moves within the United Kingdom, is relatively straightforward and can be explained simply. The welfare of the child concerned is the paramount consideration, with guidance then offered by appellate cases as to how the child’s best interests should be ascertained by judges in international and domestic relocation cases respectively.

Part 2 | Previous Research on Relocation Disputes

The simplicity of relocation law belies the extent to which relocation disputes are immensely difficult for all those involved, whether the children, the parents, the lawyers or the judges. Previous research in England and Wales has shown that there are concerns that the law itself, although well understood, may not have struck the right balance in its pursuit of the child’s best interests. However, while this view was shared by many, others thought that the English courts had shifted their approach in the mid- to late-2000s and were now approaching relocation cases more ‘rigorously’. At the same time, researchers in other jurisdictions were investigating case outcomes and patterns of decision-making in a way that, until now, has not been possible in England and Wales because of the lack of access to the relevant materials.

Part 3 | International and Domestic Relocation Disputes: Characteristics of Cases and Families

Cases in the dataset came from all over England and Wales, but there was a clear dominance of cases coming from London and the South East of England. Cases were heard by judges at all levels, with the bulk of international cases being tried by Circuit Judges and most domestic cases going before District Judges. In both domestic and international cases, applicants were more likely than respondents to be legally represented, and those who had legal representation usually had both a solicitor and a barrister.

In both international and domestic cases, most disputes involved a single child, with an average number of children per case of 1.5. In terms of children’s ages, the mean age was around 7 (just under for international cases, just over for domestic ones). International cases more often involved pre-school aged children than did domestic disputes, but in both samples the bulk of children were aged 4 through 9; few children aged 12 or over featured in either category.

The vast majority of applications were brought by mothers (around 95%). In terms of care arrangements, a small minority of cases (around 5%) involved equal shared care arrangements, while a larger minority (7% in the CC sample, 38% in the RQ sample) involved 65/35 shared care arrangements. Conversely, in the CC sample overnight contact cases account for well over half of all cases, whereas in the RQ sample only around a quarter of cases were reported to be in this group. In both samples, a small minority of cases involved direct contact not including overnight stays or no direct contact at all.

Looking at parents’ relationships statuses, we see that parents in the international sample were more commonly married to one another previously, whereas the domestic cases involved a higher proportion of former cohabitants. In terms of each parent’s current relationship status, applicant parents are more likely to have remarried (35%, compared with 7% of respondents), whereas respondents are more likely to be in a cohabiting relationship or to be single (23% and 59% respectively, compared with 10% and 42% for applicants).

Some 70% of applicants in the international sample were foreign nationals seeking to leave the United Kingdom, most (though not all) proposing to return to their original home country. In terms of destinations for the international cases, the biggest category involved proposed moves to other EU countries (around 40%), with ‘North America’ and ‘Australia/New Zealand’ each accounting for around a quarter of cases. Domestic cases had an average travel time between the current location and the proposed destination of around 2.5 hours, though with a range from 1 hour to 11 hours.

Part 4 | International Relocation Disputes: Outcomes and Patterns

The overall success rate for litigated international relocation cases in the CC and RQ samples combined (N=141) was 66.7%. Given that English law was said to be ‘pro-relocation’, it is interesting to compare this figure with the equivalent data from Canada (68%) and New Zealand (68%), which are respectively ‘neutral’ and ‘anti-relocation’. Of course, court outcomes are not the whole story because pre-litigation advice is an important filter, but the similarity is noteworthy.

We then go on to identify factors which appear to be important in influencing case outcomes, which we divide into three broad groups. The first group relates to courts, judges and lawyers. The data suggest that courts in London and on the South East (1) Circuit are more likely to refuse relocation applications than courts elsewhere in England and Wales (around 62%, compared with 85%). There is also a difference based on the type of judge hearing the case, but the data suggest that this difference may be accounted for by case allocation: different judges hear different types of international relocation case. While most cases involved both applicants and respondents with legal representation, the data suggest that if one side does not have a lawyer then his or her chances of getting the desired outcome are substantially reduced (though this is correlation, not causation).

The second group of factors focuses on families and their biographical characteristics. In terms of children’s care arrangements, the overall picture suggested by the data is that applications where the respondent parent does not have overnight staying contact with the child are more likely to be allowed (around 75%) than cases which do involve staying contact (around 55%); but the amount of staying contact (whether amounting to shared care or not) does not make a significant difference. There is some suggestion from the data that cases involving multiple children are less likely to be allowed than cases involving a single child, but the small number of cases with several children makes it impossible to be sure of any pattern. In the international cases, the ages of the children made no apparent difference to case outcomes. In terms of the parents’ relationship statuses, we saw that the parents’ previous relationship with each other made no difference to case outcomes, and the same was true of the respondent parent’s current relationship status; but applicants who were now married had a significantly higher chance of their relocation application being approved than did applicants who were single (just over 80% for those who were married, compared with 50% for those who were single).

The third group of considerations looked at proposed destinations and the applicant parents’ motivations for seeking to relocate. The overall picture in terms of destinations seems to be that the shorter the proposed move, the more likely it is that the relocation will be allowed – so moves within the EU are allowed more often than moves to North America, which are in turn allowed more often than moves to Australia or New Zealand (in the CC data, 80%, 71% and 52% respectively). Consistently with previous research, we see that most applicants have several reasons for seeking to relocate, but we focus on four key groups: ‘going home’, ‘new job’, ‘lifestyle’ and ‘other’. The findings here are not straightforward, but the overall picture seems to be that cases involving a return home or a specific job offer have a greater than average chance of being allowed (72% and 70% respectively), while those seen as lifestyle decisions are significantly less likely to be allowed (48%). Most opposition to relocation applications was based on the child’s loss of relationship with the respondent parent; but in those cases where the respondent argued that the proposed move was poorly planned or that it was brought in bad faith, the application was less likely to be allowed (56% and 50% respectively).

Part 5 | Domestic Relocation Disputes: Outcomes and Patterns

The overall success rate for litigated domestic relocation cases in the combined sample (N=37) was 70.3%. Given that orders restricting internal relocation are thought to be unusual, it may be surprising that this figure was so similar to that for international relocation (66.7%). However, it should be remembered that many internal relocation cases will not be litigated, so the range of cases before the courts may be different in the two contexts.

Starting again with issues relating to courts, judges and lawyers, the data suggest that courts in London and on the SE-1 circuit may be more inclined to allow internal relocation applications than courts elsewhere – the reverse of the pattern seen in the international data – though this variation may be explained by case characteristics. A finding more in keeping with the international data is that District Judges seem to be more inclined to prevent domestic relocations than are Circuit Judges.

Looking at families and their biographical characteristics, similar patterns are seen as emerged from the international data. Children’s pre-relocation care arrangements appear strongly correlated with case outcome, with the proportion of relocations allowed increasing as the non-moving parent’s involvement in the child’s daily life decreases. In terms of children’s ages, cases where relocation was allowed had a lower mean age of child (7.0 years) compared with cases that were refused (8.3 years), though it is unclear why that would be the case.

Rather than proposed destinations, the focus in the domestic data is on distances of the proposed move. The data show that shorter moves (two hours or less) are less likely to be allowed than longer moves (61.1%, compared with 78.9%). Again, it is unclear why that should be the case, given that on-going contact will be easier to maintain after a shorter move. In terms of reasons for seeking or opposing domestic relocation, the data are equivocal about whether motivation makes much difference. No observed differences were close to being statistically significant, and the differences were in any case marginal.

Part 6 | Discussion and On-Going Work

The statistical data have revealed a wealth of findings, but have also raised many questions. The next stage of analysis will return to the judgments and look qualitatively at judicial reasoning. After that, the project turns to parental experiences. Parents in 30 relocation cases have been interviewed about their experiences, and those interviews will be analysed and the conclusions added to the overall project. 

Relocation Research - First Update

My research project looking at relocation disputes in England and Wales is now well underway. I wrote about this work on the blog briefly early last year, and this seems like a good time for an update.

The work has three distinct strands. Collection of data for the first two strands is now complete, and analysis of the findings is underway. The third strand, which involves interviewing parents who have been involved in relocation disputes which were resolved within the last 9 months, is running for a couple more months.


Interviews with parents: on-going work

So far we have done about 20 interviews with parents. The stories are very varied, of course, but the one commonality that comes through is just how painful relocation cases are, whichever position the parent is in. Even the parents who 'win' their cases - fathers who successfully prevent a relocation or mothers who are allowed to move - find the process traumatic and difficult. For those who 'lose', the position is even worse.

We are keen to increase the number of stories that we have for the study, so that we can get the fullest picture possible of what the experience is like for parents. If you are a parent who was involved in a relocation case (international or internal, and whether the relocation was allowed or refused) that was resolved in the last 9 months and you are interested in being interviewed about the experience, please do get in touch. Similarly, if you are a family lawyer who has a current or former client who might be interested, please contact us. There is an information leaflet available here.


Court cases and questionnaires: completed work

The other two strands of the work were conducted in 2012, and the analysis of the findings is now underway. The first strand involved collecting from courts as many relocation cases as possible over the year. For international relocation disputes, 95 cases were collected in this way; for internal relocation, 22 cases were submitted. This disparity might be explained in three ways.

First, when people think about 'relocation' they usually think international. The project relied on judges and lawyers submitting material to be studied, and they may have focused on their international cases. Second, internal relocation cases tend to be heard by District Judges in the County Courts, whereas international relocation cases usually go to Circuit Judges or High Court Judges. The sheer number of DJs makes it harder to contact them and they have a very high turnover of cases, so getting material from them may be more challenging. Third, there may actually be more international relocation cases that reach the courts than there are internal cases. The reason for that would likely be that parents are more able to negotiate the outcome when an internal relocation is proposed, whereas international cases are very difficult to agree.

The other strand of this research involved a questionnaire for family lawyers. The questionnaire was sent out both electronically and in paper copy, delivered at conferences and seminars and by direct mail to solicitors and barristers around England and Wales. 187 usable responses were received. Some of the questions were evaluative, but most asked the lawyers to give detailed information about their most recent relocation case. The aim was to be able to compare the cases reported by lawyers with the cases collected from the courts.

The analysis of these findings is now underway. There is a lot of work to do, but one or two initial findings can be shared here. First, looking at international relocation cases in 2012 (so, 95 court cases and 84 of the 187 questionnaire responses), one question is: what do we mean by international? Where are people proposing to go?

Graph 1 shows that there are three dominant destinations: countries within the EU, the USA and Canada, and Australia and New Zealand. That is probably not that surprising. International relocation cases arise for a number of reasons, but 'going home' (for the parent or a new partner) and 'new start' are both common reasons, and the links between Britain and other EU countries on the one hand, and with English-speaking developed countries on the other, makes these proposed destinations unsurprising.

Another question might be to ask how old the children are who are involved in these cases. On average, each case has 1.5 children, and Graph 2 shows the distribution of their ages. While there is clearly a little bit of variation between the court case sample and the questionnaire sample, overall the message from the two seems to be the same. There is a small peak of children just before school age, and then a main peak around 7 or 8. The drop-off of children aged 12+ is unsurprising, and is probably explained by the increasing

importance the the wishes and feelings of children as they start to get into adolescence and, in the relocation context especially, start to be able to understand the consequences of the decisions being taken a little more clearly.

 

These are obviously fairly basic bits of information. The work that we are doing at the moment is asking about much more involved questions, mainly trying to see what the data can tell us about which factors do and do not help to predict the outcomes of cases. We are not ready to make those findings public just yet, but it does look like there are some exciting results to come. Factors like (i) the child's previous care arrangements, (ii) the reason for the proposed relocation, (iii) the possibilities for maintaining a good relationship with the non-moving parent if the relocation is allowed, and even (iv) the type of judge and the location of the court are being considered, and we hope that this analysis will allow us to give useful pointers in future.

 

 

Rob George is lead author, with Frances Judd QC,

Damian Garrido and Anna Worwood, of "Relocation:

A Practical Guide", a practical handbook for lawyers

and parents who are involved with relocation cases,

to be published by Family Law in early June 2013.

International Relocation - Supreme Disappointment

Last autumn, I posted here about an international relocation case in the Court of Appeal called Re F (Child: International Relocation). The Court of Appeal had, to the surprise of many onlookers, dismissed the father's appeal against a decision to allow his child to be removed from the UK to live with the mother in Spain. The case was unusual as relocation cases go, and seemed like a good test of the legal principles applicable to these cases for that reason.

The father, represented pro bono by Access Law Solicitors and by Frances Judd QC, Edward Devereux and myself from Harcourt Chambers, applied to appeal again to the Supreme Court. To be clear, there is no 'right' to take a case to the Supreme Court. You have to get permission. The Court of Appeal can, in principle, give permission, but very rarely does - it is considered better to allow the Supreme Court Justices to decide for themselves which cases they take. Most applications are turned down, as can be seen from the Supreme Court's published list of applications and the results. If the case is turned down, that's the end of the matter - there is no further appeal within the domestic courts. If the case is accepted, then it proceeds to a proper hearing in the Supreme Court.

The application to appeal Re F involved a 41-page document setting out the grounds of appeal, which fell into three broad categories:

1. the question of whether the guidance given by the 2001 Court of Appeal decision in Payne v Payne amounted to an unjustifiable gloss on the welfare principle as set out in section 1 of the Children Act 1989;
2. the question of whether, regardless of the answer to that question, it was right to say that such guidance could be applied (with or without modifications) to cases where the applicant was not the primary carer of the child in question, as had happened in this case and as Black LJ had suggested in the 2011 case of K v K;
3. the question of what, if any, guidance should be given by the senior courts to trial judges about how to determine international relocation cases.

Six reasons were suggested as to why these questions were matters of general public importance which therefore justified the attention of the Supreme Court. Those reasons, in short were:

1. the increasing mobility of families in recent decades;
2. the increasing sharing of children's care arrangements by parents after separation, such that guidance based on there being a single 'primary carer' may often no longer hold true;
3. the need not to discriminate between parents based on their gender or their parenting roles;
4. the apparent difference of opinion between different Court of Appeal judges about whether the guidance given in Payne applies to all international relocation cases or only to some (see K v K);
5. the apparent controversy over the way in which that guidance is stated, as seen in court judgments, counsels' submissions, academic writing and elsewhere;
6. the different way in which other jurisdictions approach international relocation cases.

These submissions were, of course, expanded at length, and were put on paper to the Supreme Court in mid-December. On 4 February the answer came: permission to appeal was refused.

The Supreme Court customarily gives very brief reasons when an application to appeal is refused. The reasons in this case were twofold. First, that this case did not demonstrate a matter of general public importance that should be considered by the Supreme Court at this time (which is a fairly standard reason). Second, it was said that, on its facts, this case was clearly a borderline welfare decision, and therefore that an appeal as to the outcome was unlikely to be successful.

Of course, counsel had attempted to show that this was a matter of general public importance, and I think that it is. While international relocation disputes make up only a small minority of cases in the family courts (best guess, 200-250 cases per year), they are amongst the most difficult, and have potentially life-long consequences for the children involved. But of course it is a judgment call - the Court of Appeal hears relocation appeals reasonably often, and has a broadly consistent line about how these cases should be assessed. One might think, therefore, that there is no need for a Supreme Court appeal.

The second reason given by the Supreme Court is more tricky. There is a general rule that appeal courts should not interfere with borderline decisions in welfare cases because, where a case is on the borderline, the judge who heard all the evidence and met the parties is better placed to decide which side of the line it should fall. That's fine - but in order to have any force, it relies on an assumption that the judge understood and applied the correct legal principles. Here, the very argument was that the principles which the judge applied were wrong.

In particular, the guidance which he applied assumed that the applicant was the child's primary carer, which she was not. If the case was borderline when the legal guidance assumed that the applicant was the primary carer, it would probably not have been borderline had that inappropriate guidance not been applied. Indeed, the strong argument in favour of leaving the child in the high quality care of his primary carer father would, one would think, have tipped the case decisively against allowing the relocation case. The only reason the decision appeared to be a borderline one was the influence of the very guidance which the father sought to show was inappropriate.

It is a loss for this child and this father that the case has ended as it has, and a loss for the development of relocation law in general that the Supreme Court turned down this opportunity to review the English courts' guidance on how international relocation cases should be assessed.

 

The author was involved  in the father's application to appeal

in a pro bono advisory capacity. All views expressed

are the author's own, and are not necessarily shared

by the other lawyers in the case, or by the father.

Right thinking, wrong result? Commentary on Re F (Child: International Relocation)

On 24 October 2012, the Court of Appeal gave judgment in Re F (Child: International Relocation) [2012] EWCA Civ 1364. This post argues that although some of the points made by Lord Justice Munby in his judgment are sensible and welcome, the outcome of the case is wrong and it is unfortunate that the Court of Appeal did not allow the father's appeal.



On 3 October, I attended a Court of Appeal hearing in London as an observer in the public gallery. Before the case started, I had had chance to read the decision that was being appealed,* and had spoken to the mother's barrister and to the father himself (he did not have lawyers for the appeal). It was easy to see why the father was appealing the decision, and I thought that he had an excellent case. It was somewhat surprising to find that he had lost his case, and I comment here on some aspects of that decision now that the judgment has been published.

The Facts:

The facts, very briefly, were these. The parents moved together from Spain to England in August 2009 when the father was offered a position here by his employer. The initial two-year posting was extended by another two years in May 2011, but the parents' relationship ended very shortly thereafter. The mother then returned to Spain, leaving the six-year-old child, whom I will call Pepe (not his real name), in the father's care. The mother initiated proceedings under the Hague Convention on child abduction which, quite properly, were dismissed by the High Court in London on the basis that Pepe was now "habitually resident" in the UK, and could therefore not be "returned" to Spain since his home was here. So the case became a relocation case - both parents sought to be Pepe's main carer, and the mother sought permission to take him to live with her in Spain.

The case came before His Honour Judge Marston for a three-day hearing. By now it was agreed that the mother had historically been Pepe's main carer, but that for nearly a year the father had been the main carer. There was no dispute that both parents were good parents, and that Pepe would be happy and well cared for with either of them as his main carer.

The decision being appealed:

The Judge looked at the existing authorities on relocation disputes, particularly the cases of Payne v Payne [2001] EWCA Civ 166 and K v K (Relocation: Shared Care Arrangement) [2011] EWCA Civ 793. Put simply, the former sets out guidance about how to approach relocation applications when the applicant is the primary carer of the child, and the latter applies when there is a relatively equal shared care arrangement - but both of them, at the end of the day, are guidance about how to work out which outcome will be best for the child.

The Judge's decision was that Pepe should move with his mother. The judgment was described in the Court of Appeal as "clear and careful in both its structure and its content" (para 12). The Judge said that there was at present not a shared care arrangement, since the father was clearly the primary carer - consequently, he said, "That seems to me to entitle me to look at the Payne guidelines and I make the following findings on them" (quoted at para 14). The Judge later remarked that "What I have in the circumstances if I apply Payne is a very well balanced case" (quoted at para 17). However, when considering all the questions asked by Payne and by the welfare checklist in the Children Act 1989, the Judge concluded that the mother should be given permission to move with Pepe.

The appeal:

The basis of the father's appeal can be explained very briefly. His argument was that the Judge had erred in looking at the Payne guidelines in this case because that case applies only where the applicant is identified as the child's primary carer. In this case, the Judge had clearly said that the father (the respondent to the application) was the primary carer. Consequently, the Judge had effectively had in mind the wrong questions when considering the application. In the father's submission, the case should have been seen as an application by the mother to transfer Pepe's main residence from the father to her. Cases cited by the father, such as Re B (A Child) [2009] UKSC 5, support his claim that such an application would have faced significant difficulties given that his care of Pepe was recognised as being good.

The mother's case was equally straightforward. Her barrister's argument was simply that, at the end of the day, the Judge was making an overall assessment of Pepe's welfare. The Judge had indeed looked at Payne, but also at various other matters; and in any case, he had not rigidly applied the Payne guidelines, but had simply used them amongst other things to inform his overall assessment.

The Court of Appeal essentially accepted the mother's arguments and rejected the appeal. The court found that "there was no error of law":

"Although this was not a case where the application was being made by the primary carer, Judge Marston was, for the reasons I have given, entitled to have regard to Thorpe LJ's 'discipline' as set out in Payne at paragraph [40]. He correctly appreciated that the case had to be decided by reference to [Pepe]'s best interests. And, at the end of the day, that is precisely what Judge Marston did.

"He carefully took into account [Pepe]’s current circumstances in this country, the quality of his father's care of him and the father’s own plans, wishes and feelings. There is nothing which begins to suggest that he started off with any presumption in favour of the mother's claim. And if the complaint is that he did not recognise the presumptive weight of the father's claim, the short answer ... is that he would have erred in law had he done so.

"A reading of his judgment demonstrates that Judge Marston took into account and gave appropriate weight to each of the factors to which the father has drawn attention. He acknowledged that the father was the primary carer and recognised the importance the father was attaching to the argument based upon the status quo." (paras 49-51)
 

Discussion:

Some things said in Munby LJ's judgment are welcome and helpful. One is the important 'Postscript' to the judgment (though why it should be a postscript rather than part of the judgment itself is unclear) addressing the risks that arise when the law has, or appears to have, different 'categories' of relocation cases. Here, the categories being discussed are "primary carer" (Payne) and "shared care" (K v K) - but, as Munby LJ rightly says, Pepe's case "did not fall comfortably within the existing taxonomy" (para 60). The lesson to learn from this, said Munby LJ, was that advocates and judges should avoid undue categorisation of cases, where such an approach would distract from the focus on the child's welfare:

"The last thing that this very difficult area of family law requires is a satellite jurisprudence generating an ever-more detailed classification of supposedly different types of relocation case. Any move in that direction is, in my judgment, to be firmly resisted. But so too advocates and judges must resist the temptation to try and force the facts of the particular case with which they are concerned within some forensic straightjacket. Asking whether a case is a 'Payne type case', or a 'K v K type case' or a 'Re Y type case', when in truth it may be none of them, is simply a recipe for unnecessary and inappropriate forensic dispute or worse. It is to be avoided." (para 60)

In my forthcoming book which will shortly go to press on relocation disputes, I deal with this point more fully when I argue that there should be a single set of guidance in relocation cases which is flexible enough that it can be applied to all cases, regardless of their factual variations. If there is any difference of approach, actual or perceived, based on the existing care arrangements, then there is no way to avoid judges being asked to decide whether this is a case of Type X or Type Y, and those questions are, as Munby LJ says, likely to be unhelpful as well as often unanswerable.

At the moment, though, despite what Munby LJ says, I think that this satellite litigation is unavoidable because, again contrary to Munby LJ's view, I believe that there are two separate sets of guidance applicable to relocation cases, depending on the existing care arrangements. In K v K, Lady Justice Black sought to avoid this split by saying simply that the Payne questions should be asked in a shared care case, but with a recognition that the facts of the case would make some of the assessments called for by Payne less relevant. Having a single approach, whatever the detail may be, is a laudable aim; but as I explained in detail in my article on this subject in [2012] Child and Family Law Quarterly 110, there is binding authority which prevents this at the moment.

The case of Re C and M (Children) [1999] EWCA Civ 2039, although never reported, is binding on the Court of Appeal, and makes clear that the approach applied in the cases which preceded Payne do not apply to a shared care case. So while I strongly agree that it would be better if we adopted a single analytical framework for all relocation disputes, I am unable to accept that this position can be achieved simply by quietly ignoring the authorities which established the split approach. The existence of Re C and M makes it irrelevant whether or not Munby LJ is right to interpret Moore-Bick LJ as agreeing with Black LJ in K v K , and therefore to say that their broad interpretation of Payne as representing a single approach to relocation is "the majority" and "the correct approach" (para 43 of Re F). For what it is worth, though, I find Munby LJ's reasoning on this point ambitious.

Finally, but importantly, I want to say why I think that both Judge Marston and Munby LJ were wrong in their assessments of this case, and therefore why the father should have succeeded in resisting the relocation application. This was a case where the father had demonstrated beyond any doubt that he could care well for Pepe as the main carer. The fact that, as Lord Justice Ward said when giving the father permission to appeal, "the judge seems to have treated the mother as the primary carer" (quoted at para 23) is an impression which I find it impossible to escape.

Judge Marston "looked at ... Thorpe LJ's discipline as set out in Payne at para [40]", then the welfare checklist from the Children Act, and then an overall welfare assessment (para 48). Munby LJ seeks to support Judge Marston by pointing out that he did not refer to other parts of Payne or to the earlier case of Poel v Poel [1970] 1 WLR 1469 - but that is no answer to the father's case. The guidance in Payne, set out in para 40 of that case and methodically applied by Judge Marston in Re F, has as its essential underpinning the fact that the applicant is the primary carer. Indeed, Thorpe LJ himself made this point clearly in K v K (para 41) in 2011: "I am in no doubt at all that the guidance in Payne is posited on the premise that the applicant is the primary carer. It so states in terms."

Given this, Judge Marston was in error when he asked himself the questions set out in para 40 of Payne, and it is impossible to say that having asked himself those questions he then made a legitimate balance of all the factors relevant to Pepe's welfare. It is not enough for a judge to say that he is making a decision based on welfare if he has asked himself the wrong questions when considering which factors are relevant to that welfare determination.

This is an unusual case, as relocation disputes go. In fact, it would probably have been better approached as an application for a transfer of Pepe's primary residence, followed by an application for relocation if the mother's residence application were successful. With that approach, I find it hard to believe that the mother would have been allowed to move the child. The Supreme Court has previously made clear that the disruption involved in a transfer of residence may be (though will not always be) a crucial factor in such a case:

"Transfer of [the child's] residence would involve a great deal more than a change of address. Many of the familiar aspects of his life which anchor his stability and sense of security would be changed. The justices were therefore right to give significant weight to the desirability of preserving the status quo. This is a factor which will not always command the importance that must be attached to it in the present case but we are satisfied that it was of considerable significance in the debate as to where this child's best interests lay." (Re B (A Child) [2009] UKSC 5, para 42)

In this case, that transfer of residence meant not only moving away from the good care being provided by the primary carer father; it also meant a change of country (albeit back to Spain where Pepe had lived until age 4, and where he had his extended family on both sides), change of school, change of language. Was that in his best interests? Well, maybe - but since the judge did not ask himself those questions, we can't know what the answer would have been. My instinctive reaction is to think that allowing the mother to move the child in this way was probably not the right answer.

Moreover, though, this case has an unpleasant smack of sexism. The primary carer father in this case might be forgiven for thinking that he got a rather harder ride than would a primary carer mother in a case where the father was seeking to move the child abroad.



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* During 2012, I am collecting all first instance judgments and orders made in relocation cases in England and Wales. This case had been submitted to me as part of that research. More information about the project is available on my Faculty webpage. Nothing in this post reveals anything that is not publicly available in the Court of Appeal judgment.

Legal research - what's the point?

I'm at an interdisiplinary academic conference about shared parenting in Birmingham this week. Interesting stuff, but also some issues that it's important to clear up. In particular, someone said this afternoon that research ought to be able to tell us what care arrangements are best for the children of separated parents. Someone else said that research wasn't going to be able to do that, and the first person said: "Well, what's the point of all this research that we're doing then?"

I think that's a valuable question, and I thought I'd offer a short answer. It's important to understand what research can and cannot do, both for researchers ourselves and for those who want to make use of research in practical ways. One example of the potential confusion can be seen in a 2011 Court of Appeal decision called Re W (Relocation: Removal Outside Jurisdiction), which was a case about a mother's proposal to relocate to Australia with her children.

As I said in my blog on relocation a few days ago, family migration in separated families is a controversial and difficult topic, and there have been plenty of calls for more research to be done. The judges in the Court of Appeal are well aware of these calls for research, and in Re W Lord Justice Wall said this (para [129]):

"It further occurs to me that unless and until we have the research ... relocation cases will remain fact specific, the subject of discretionary decisions..."

So, this is where is all goes wrong. That's not what research is for!

Research is there to identify trends, risks and patterns, and to show that when people do or have x, y and z characteristics then they are more likely also to do or have A, B or C. Consequently, research might tell us that 90% of cases where x and y are present end up with A. But what research doesn't do is tell you what you should do in any one particular case, because research is about likelihoods and trends, not about any one situation. Crucially, research is there to help us to make informed decisions, but it cannot be used to make the decisions for us.

In other words, there is simply no research that could be done that would make individual relocation cases (or any other family law cases for that matter) not fact specific and therefore not the subject of discretionary decision. (In this context, a discretionary decision means one where the judge decides which of the parents' proposals is best based on the evidence presented in the case. This is different from most cases, where if you prove facts 1, 2 and 3 then you win. In cases about children, both sides make their case, but the judge still has to exercise judgment to decide the best solution.)

A good piece of research might show, for example, that 90% of children are harmed by doing X. However, no matter how clear that research is, it does not mean that X should never be ordered by a judge – the case before the judge might be one of the 10%. The judge can use the research as a basis for cross-checking the decision to order X, and to ask whether that really is the best decision; but if the facts of the case support doing X, the research is not a reason to refuse it. Cases are inevitably fact-sensitive and call for a careful determination by decision-makers who are aware of and informed by research evidence, but not constrained or unduly restricted by it.

So research is important, becuase it helps decision-makers to have a full understanding of the issues they are asked to adjudicate. However, research will never take away the need for careful, skilled judgment of individual cases. Research makes for informed decision-making, but it does not make the decision for you.

For more on the importance of research and its uses in family law, see my

article 'Reviewing Relocation?' in March's issue of Child and Family Law

Quarterly, which discusses the cases of Re W (Relocation: Removal Outside

Jurisdiction) and K v K (Relocation: Shared Care Arrangement) in detail.

Relocation Disputes in the Family Courts

Family law engages with areas of people's personal lives and feelings which the law normally keeps well clear of - things like love, passion, intimacy, commitment and betrayal, to adopt Professor John Dewar's list in his article 'The Normal Chaos of Family Law'. Most separated parents have very little to do with the family court. They sort things out for themselves in one way or another, often negotiating and re-negotiating their new and complex post-conjugal relationship many times as their children grow up. But other parents are simply unable to sort things for themselves. Sometimes the parents are too angry and too hurt to reach agreement, and sometimes their cases are just too hard for compromises to be found.

Relocation disputes (also known as 'leave to remove' cases, 'removal from the jurisdiction' cases or, in North America, 'move-away cases') are usually in the latter category. These are cases which arise when one parent proposes to move to a new geographic location and take their child or children with them. These cases often involve proposals to move to a different country, though they might also be about moves within the UK. Even quite short moves can be disputed sometimes (see E v E [2006] EWCA Civ 843, where the move in question would have been just over an hour's drive), though these cases usually settle long before the court gets invovled.

There are many complications to relocation law, and many commentators inside and outside the legal professions have strongly-held views. I have been researching in this area for about 6 years now, and I still find angles that I hadn't thought of before and questions that I can't answer. One difficulty is that both parties to the relocation dispute have good arguments to support their positions, and it is hard to think that one of them automatically has the better of the argument.

The parent seeking to move (usually but by no means always the mother) can say that she is entitled to live her own life and not be tied to her former partner for the rest of her life. She is often wanting to leave to the UK to return to her original home country, often seeking support from her wider family in bringing up the children. She might have a new partner who needs or wants to move - maybe for work, for family, or simply to go in search of a better life. From an equality point of view, it can also be noted that parents who are not performing the main care-giving function in their children's lives are free to move as and when they like, regardless of any impact on the children or other parent.

On the other side, the parent opposing the relocation (usually but not always the father) can fairly point out that his relationship with his children is also important for their wellbeing and upbringing, and that he will be sidelined in their lives if they move away. A weekly chat on Skype is hardly going to fill the gap left by a day spent together every week (and in fact the non-moving parents in relocation disputes are often seeing their children far more often than this). Moving to a new country is often disruptive for children in terms of schooling, and if the country in question is culturally very different from the UK then some children struggle to settle.

There is lots that we know about relocation disputes in the family courts, but far more that we don't. The family courts in this country keep especially poor administrative data about their cases, which means that we do not know some incredibly basic information. Things like: how many relocation cases are litigated every year. Or how many relocation applications are allowed and how many are refused. Or how many cases are brough by mothers, how many by fathers, and how many by other family members. Or how old the children are, on average, in a relocation case.

For anyone interested in reforming the law - and there are many people who think that relocation law in this country should be looked at again - this lack of information is a real problem (though they don't always seem to realise it!). How can we know whether the allegation that the law is biased in favour of relocation is true or not when we don't even know how many applications are granted?

There are lots of ways that research could help to answer these problems. One approach, which the British Academy is funding me to try, is to gather as many family court decisions in relocation cases as possible over a 12-month time-frame. All the family court judges in England and Wales have been asked to send in copies of the judgments and orders that they make during 2012 to me to analyse. The going is quite slow so far - just 6 or 8 cases per month have arrived so far - but it is hard to know how successful the research is becuase we don't know how many cases there actually are! (The first question you want to ask as a scientist is about response rate, but this research can never answer that question - I don't know whether there really were only 8 cases in January 2012 and I got them all, or whether there were 80 and I got only 10%.)

Anyway, only time will tell - but the need for relocation law is not going to go anywhere any time soon. Migration rates are increasing every year and, as people increasingly share the care of children in post-separation parenting arrangements, the arguments about proposed relocations are surely going to become more frequent too. The more we can learn about these cases, the better equipped we will be to know how best to resolve them.

Further details about my research project and publications can be found on my Faculty webpage.