Legal aid cuts “unquestionably compromise” Family Court

The Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, Diana Bryant, says that due to funding cuts to Victoria Legal Aid, “the system is compromised, unquestionably”. Increasingly, parties are required to represent themselves, which puts them in a difficult position: “You have a party who’s not only going to be cross-examined by their former partner about, perhaps, violence of which they’re the victim, but they have to run their case and they have to cross-examine their partner. And for many people that’s impossible and it leads to settlements.”