This report presents a case study on cross-border family law in Scotland in light of the UK's decision to leave the EU ("Brexit"). The research began with an initial mapping of the EU legislation, regulations and directives that support children's rights, from family law, child protection and immigration through to the environment and data protection. Wider research now shows that the EU has enacted over 80 legal instruments that confer direct entitlement for children. As such, it was necessary to narrow the scope of Together’s research to focus on an in-depth case study in one area: cross-border family law in relation to parental responsibility, child abduction and maintenance payments. This research highlights that there is a significant number of children born to families in Scotland who are at risk of losing significant protections of their rights in relation to cross-border family law (over 10% of all babies born in 2016).
The EU Withdrawal Bill means that EU instruments will lose much of their effectiveness in the UK, including those instruments that regulate child custody, contact, child abduction, and child maintenance and ensure that children have the opportunity to have their opinion heard during abduction return proceedings and will soon allow children’s opinions to be heard in all proceedings. These EU regulations also ensure that decisions are reached within eighteen weeks “except where exceptional circumstances make this impossible”. New proposals include additional safeguards to speed up proceedings, including limiting the number of appeals, as well as fast-tracking the enforcement of access rights to save time and costs for families.
