The family Court has some power to deal with people who contravene their orders by way of a contravention application.

Division 13A of the family Law act deals with the consequences of failing to comply with obligations that affect children. The procedure at a hearing is set out in rule 21.08.

The court must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the contravention has been proved for the more serious contraventions.

There is a defence that the person who contravened the order had “a reasonable excuse” for doing so.

The definition of reasonable excuse is not exhaustive and it is necessary for the party alleging they had a reasonable excuse to prove that it was reasonable in the circumstances.

The practical position is that courts don’t like dealing with contravention applications and whilst they are common, on occasions the family Court will suggest mediation to sort out the difficulties between the respective parents.

This is understandable in the circumstances as it is the welfare of the children which is paramount.

I have seen contravention applications which are clearly designed to vex the other party and which don’t seem to have any significant grounds of succeeding.

Alternately, where one parent unilaterally decides to prevent the other from spending time with children in accordance with orders made in court, a contravention application can provide the court with an opportunity to put serious sanctions on the non-complying party.

The other type of application commonly used to force parties to comply with family Court order is called an enforcement application. The aim of this application is to make parties follow the letter of the orders and often the court will deal with these types of applications by carefully monitoring compliance with orders and bringing the parties back to court regularly to check compliance has occurred.

The system does regrettably leave frustrated parties in cases where at least one party refuses to co-operate at all.

Related Havilah Legal service(s): Family Law