<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/17/debt-danger-or-a-decade-of-fighting-how-a-lack-of-legal-services-leaves-dv-victims-with-dire-choices>
"Tens of thousands of women fleeing family violence are unable to get legal
assistance each year, forcing them to represent themselves in court, incur huge
debts to pay legal fees, agree to unfair parenting and child support
arrangements, or stay in the abusive relationships.
Women fleeing domestic violence say their ex-partners can use the family law
system to continue the abuse, sometimes for more than a decade, with partners
deliberately running up their legal fees, delaying legal procedures, harassing
them with excessive numbers of legal letters and causing them to be subject to
bruising cross-examination in court.
Family lawyers have told
Guardian Australia the system is broken and
drastically underfunded and that women who cannot secure free legal assistance
– many of whom have been subject to years of financial abuse – face bills of
upwards of $200,000.
The revelations come as the government faces criticism for committing to modest
increases to legal programs for women fleeing family violence in this week’s
federal budget.
The government promised an additional $44.1m in 2024-25 for community legal
services, for indexation and wages. Women’s Legal Services Australia called
this a “step backwards” that would mean that many women’s legal services would
“have to start planning to reduce services”. The National Legal Aid chair,
Louise Glanville, said the $10.8m of additional funding coming to legal aid
“falls well short” of the $484m needed, according to an independent report."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
