Section 60I Certificate - Hardly a win
Under the Family Law Act 1975, before you can make an application to the court for a parenting order, or to change an existing parenting order, you need to try family dispute resolution.
There are exceptions to this set out in the legislation. If the dispute can’t be resolved using FDR, you need a certificate from the Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner who helped you before going to court. The requisite certificate is a Section 60I Certificate.
It is a source of constant amazement to me that parties seem to regard the issue of a Section 60I as some sort of prize. In fact, all the certificate does is mark the mediation as a failure and gives parties an entree to commence court action.
Court proceedings are characterised by costs, stress and delays, with the outcome often an unknown.
How can anyone realistically regard the achievement of a certificate authorising the commencement of court proceedings as a win?
As a Mediator, it is a common occurrence for parties to wrangle over whether or not a certificate should issue.
Surely parties could better direct their energy at trying to get the other party to mediation or analysing why the mediation failed or whether there is some benefit in convening further mediation rather than collecting their certificate and rushing off to court with the consequences that will inevitably follow.
Mike Emerson, February 2017