This journal article reports the summary findings of a survey of Family Law Practitioners conducted between November and December 2007. The survey is part of a wider PhD project provisionally titled 'The Parenting Hearings Programme Pilot in the New Zealand Family Court: constitutional, philosophical, legal and practical issues with semi-inquisitorial processes in the common law system.' The survey sought participant's early views of the Parenting Hearings Programme (PHP), a two-year pilot being run in the Family Courts in Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, Palmerston North, Wellington and Dunedin from 1 November 2006. The PHP is a programme, based on a similar Australian initiative, the Children's Case Programme (CCP), of alternative judicial procedures designed specifically to make parenting issues proceedings more efficient and less adversarial. They move control of the proceedings from the parties and their lawyers to the Judge with the aim of allowing the Judge to more easily adopt and switch between differing styles of intervention ranging from mediative to adjudicative, thus making the overall approach more inquisitorial. Of the 735 family law practitioners approached, 156 participated. Survey findings were mixed, with support for the process efficiencies gained, but with many concerns about whether the new process served natural justice. There were also concerns about the pilot process itself, with 30% of respondents convinced that the decision to implement the new process had already been made.

New Zealand Family Law Journal 6(1) March 2008 : 12-23