One of the key roles of the Expert Witness Institute (‘EWI’) is to ensure that policy, rule and regulatory changes are informed by the experience of our members, and the needs of the expert witness community and the wider justice system. In this update, we discuss key policy developments and our advocacy work over the last couple of months. 

In recent years a range of stakeholders have raised concerns regarding unregulated experts providing evidence in family law court cases and the standard of the evidence they provide. The Family Procedure Rule Committee is consulting on new FPR 25.5A with the aim of requiring any expert instructed in family law children proceedings to be regulated. A key purpose of the changes is to ensure that any expert instructed in family law children proceedings has the appropriate skills and qualifications on which to base their expert evidence. 

The Family Procedure Rule Committee is consulting on a new draft Practice Direction 27A on court bundles.

The Minsitry of Justice intends to draft an amendment to the Family Procedure Rules regualting experts appointed by the court in both public and private law children proceedings.

In a Parliamentary debate, Lord Bellamy, a Minister of Justice, noted the neeed for the Family Procedure Rule Comitttee to develop a solution to prevent unregulatd psychologists giving evidence in the Family Court. 

EWI welcomes the final report and recommendations from the Family Division’s working group on Medical Experts in the Family Courts but raises continued concern about how these recommendations will be delivered.