Australian Family Dispute Resolution Mechanism And Its Implications In China

Family dispute resolution is an important means to protect family harmony and stability of society through country's appropriate intervention in family disputes. Because family dispute resolution involves not only the interests of family members but also the stability of society, it is necessary to set up a different solution means from ordinary civil dispute when solving family dispute, no matter considering its institution or its means. On the basis of special features, many countries set up special institution and procedure to solving family disputes in judicial practice. Especially in Australian, federal family court has been set up to deal with the nationwide family disputes. Moreover, a set of distinctive and practical dispute solution system has formed, including the creative idea that the Primary Dispute Resolution (PDR) system is considered as the prepositional procedure of family dispute lawsuit. However, an ordinary civil litigation proceeding is usually adopted in with matrimony and family cases in Chinese judicial practice. It is obviously that it is not good for solving family disputes to adopt the confronting solutions, let alone for protecting the privacy of litigants. Although the existing problems in solving family disputes are theoretically put forward, there are no systematic studies on how to set up the special institution and procedure to solving family disputes, and how to coordinate the conflict between the adversary solution and non-adversary solution in China. Therefore the paper investigated the Australian family dispute resolution through comparative analysis, expecting to provide some valuable suggestions on the setting up and improvement of matrimony and family dispute resolution mechanism in China.The paper consists of four chapters apart from the introduction and the conclusion. The first chapter states the historical development, institution and jurisdiction of Australian family courts and analyzes the role of them playes in solving family disputes in terms of court, judge and legal practitioner. The second chapter discusses Australian PDR in detail. It is the prepositional procedure to solve all the family disputes in Australia. First of all, the paper presents the definition of PDR and its legislative establishment; second, the commonalities and differences between PDR and ADR are compared and analyzed; finally, the basic and special system of PDR and its advantages and disadvantages are presented.The third chapter focuses on family litigation system in Australia. The author first pays her attention to the relation among family litigation, family trail and personal litigation, the definition and characteristics. Then the content of family litigation system is discusses according to the relevant rules in Australian Family Law Act, including the jurisdiction of court and its scope. After that, the advantages and disadvantages of the system are concerned.The forth chapter, some implications in relevant system are put forward based on the above discussions. On the basis of reviewing the development of family dispute resolution in China, the paper analyzes and summarizes the defects in solving family dispute including the conservative legal idea, the deficiency in legislation, unspecialized institution and stuff setting and inappropriate means of solving family dispute. Furthermore, some suggestions on improving the family dispute resolution mechanism are put forward as follows: establishing relevant laws; specializing institution and stuff; coordinating the adversary and non-adversary means of dispute resolution and creating the principles of family dispute resolution.