Editorial: justice and welfare and the JSWFL

This editorial is being written following the June Jubilee celebrations for HM Queen Elizabeth, expressing warm appreciation of a job well done over many years. The JSWFL too has been celebrating a long and splendid career, that of our joint founder, Lady Hale of Richmond, who recently came to the end of her term as President of the Supreme Court. This was recognised in June 2022 with the publication by Cambridge University Press of ‘Justice for Everyone: The jurisprudence and legal lives of Brenda Hale’ edited by Rosemary Hunter and Erika Rackley. The volume contains 34 chapters describing her many roles as academic, Law Commissioner, her legal reasoning, her work on Family Law and Childrens Rights, on Women and Domestic Abuse, on Human Rights and the state, on gender equality, and on private law and the individual, ending with a delightful lyric ‘Music to Honour Lady Hale’ set to the Gilbert and Sullivan tune ‘A Policeman’s Lot is Not a Happy One’.

We warmly recommend the volume, and would like to thank CUP for permission to include in this edition of JSWFL the description taken from Chapter 7 of her role in the setting up and continuing development of the journal, originally entitled the Journal of Social Welfare Law in 1978, which follows this brief editorial (Mavis, 2022). Brenda worked with Margaret Heywood, Director of the Training Course for Social Workers in the University of Manchester, at the suggestion of Sweet and Maxell, to create a journal for social workers and lawyers. The first editorial in1978 asked ‘Why another law journal? Why another social work journal?’ The answer from the editors was ‘this one is different. It is written not only for but by both social workers and lawyers. And this is not because social workers are interested in social welfare and lawyers are interested in law. The two professions meet across a common client. Both are equally committed to his interests. But each sees these interests differently and responds to them in a different way. The traditional role of the lawyer has been to protect his clients against the invasion of certain defined interests, whether by other individuals or by the state. The traditional role of the social worker has been to provide his clients with services and or benefits to meet his needs. Many lawyers now see the claim to such services and benefits in the same light as other legal claims. And social workers know that what they provide involves some invasion of the client’s interest, even a threat to his personal freedom. The Journal aims to explore these conflicts and help both professions towards a greater understanding of each other’s concerns and contributions’.

Over time the scope of the Journal has broadened to include broader social policy issues with the development of sociolegal studies, and also wider interest in the experience and ideas from other jurisidictions. The case notes section and reviews continueto be widely read, and found helpful. The overall development and increased scope of the Journal was recognised in 1991 in the change of title to ‘The Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law’, in 1991.

Brenda remains an active and valued member of the editorial board, and contributor of academic articles. In 2003 on the 25th anniversary of the journal her editorial in vol 25(4) began by saying that ‘the journal’s mission was to provide a forum for serious interdisciplinary discussion of the legal issues raised by the welfare state (so much of family law is also welfare law that it was natural to bring it within our fold)’.

This issue 44(3), almost 20 years and a pandemic later, confirms this statement. The key theme is parenting,with four papers about specific groups of parents in several jurisdictions: Hannah Wright has researched support services for parents who have had a child adopted, Robert Marsh describes the role of gay men who are becoming parents through adoption or surrogacy, and Moeata Keil describes Pacific Parenting by mothers and ‘othermothers’ together when parents separate in New Zealand. These papers are followed by two articles concerned with support for parents following domestic violence. Anna Speed describes services currently provided in the north of England, and Gina Masterton, Zoe Rathus, John Flood and Kieran Tranter from Australia comment on the impact of the impact of the Hague Convention in these circumstances. The final article is a covid relevant contribution from David Benbow who makes the case for using the ethics of virtue as the basis for considering vaccine damage.

The cases section also begins with child related matters, Alan Brown and Kathrine Wade discuss the request for a Parental order in a surrogacy case which was to be made after the child had reached adulthood, Mandy Burton looks at the need for revisiting findings of fact in a child arrangements case where there were question about abuse, and Ming Han Cha considers the need for degrees of flexibility when an adoption order is questioned.

The final note from Brian Sloan looks at a detrimental decision on ownership of the family home.

We are grateful to Gillian Douglas for her helpful review of ‘Fifty Years of Divorce Reform’ edited by Jo Miles and colleagues on the new no fault divorce law, of 2022.

As the current editors, we hope that we are following the guidelines set down by Brenda and Margaret in 1978, as the journal approaches its 44th birthday.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.