Standard Family Orders Handbook: Volume Two (2nd edition)

This second volume covers children and other orders including:

• Private Law Children Orders
• Public Law Children Orders
• Disclosure Orders For Child's Whereabouts
• Family Law Act 1996, Part IV Orders
• Linked Criminal and Care Proceedings Orders
• Immigration and Asylum Tribunal Related Orders
• Abduction, 1980 Hague Convention, Wardship, Brussels IIR and 1986 Hague Convention Orders
• Reporting Restrictions Orders
• Forced Marriage Orders
• Female Genital Mutilation Orders
• Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, Section 54 Orders
• Family Law Act 1986, Part III Orders
• Medical Treatment and Withdrawal Orders
• Civil Restraint Orders
• Production Orders

My Practice Guidance of 6 June 2018, following my Practice Guidance of 30 November 2017, completed the task, commenced by me in 2013 and driven forward with his usual tenacity and skill by Mr Justice Mostyn, of producing a collection of Standard Family Orders covering almost every aspect of almost every order likely to have been made by any court exercising family law jurisdiction in England and Wales. The November 2017 Practice Guidance covered Financial and Enforcement Orders. The June 2018 Practice Guidance covers orders relating to Children proceedings, both domestic and international, in addition to orders made under Part IV of the Family Law Act 1996 and various others.

Each Practice Guidance contained the same exhortation, that, whilst these standard orders do not have the strict status of forms within Part 5 of the FPR 2010, and their use, although very strongly to be encouraged, is not mandatory, they should represent the starting point and, I would hope and expect, usually the finishing point, of the drafting exercise.

Although increasingly the use of these orders will ordinarily be in the context of an electronic drafting process, which will be further assisted in due course by the increasing digitisation of the family courts already in progress, it will be tremendously helpful to have an authoritative paper version available to family lawyers and judges to supplement the digital drafting process. Accordingly, may I thoroughly commend this work produced by His Honour Judge Edward Hess, His Honour Judge Martin Dancey and Edward Devereux QC.

Although much of the heavy work of drafting was initially done by others (in addition to Mr Justice Mostyn, Janet Bazley QC, Mr Justice Cobb, Teertha Gupta QC, Amy Kisser, Alison Russell QC, now Ms Justice Russell, and David Williams QC, now Mr Justice Williams), Judge Hess, and Judge Dancey and Edward Devereux QC have more recently played the major roles in finalising the orders, following a thorough public consultation process. They have also produced between them the Standard Family Orders Handbook: Volume 2. This has the tremendous benefit for the practitioner not only of presenting full versions of all the orders in the published book form for the first time, but also the very great assistance of the authors' editorial comments, in which they use their considerable experience to identify when particular orders, or particular parts of orders, might sensibly be used.

As with the Standard Family Orders Handbook, Volume 1, the use of this work is greatly enhanced by its colour coding, with blue for the editorial comments of the authors supplementing the red, black and green colours used in the issued orders.

The Standard Family Orders Handbook, Volume 1 has already found its place on the desks of many judges and practitioners working in the financial field. I anticipate and predict that the Standard Family Orders Handbook, Volume 2 will enjoy similar success with those working in the field of children law.

The use of the standard family orders, assisted as it will be by these two Handbooks, is vital to the practice of family law in the digital age. My message continues to be: Farewell to the world of the fountain pen and biro! Onwards to the age of digitisation!

Sir James Munby, Former President of the Family Division