When a court investigates and hears a family protection case, what does this provision require the court to do, and toward what result?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In practice material of this kind, we read any expert evaluation filed in the case, such as a psychological or medical report on the parties, the social work or victim protection investigation papers, and the application for family protection measures, since each shows what professional knowledge the court had before it and what facts it could clarify.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading holds the whole sentence together: the court, when it investigates and hears a family protection case, shall strive to draw on professional knowledge in medicine, psychology, sociology, social welfare and related fields, to disclose the conduct, record, home situation, motives and causes and actual state of the domestic violence crime, so that a suitable disposition serving this Act's purpose is reached.
Another reading stresses that the court's duty is expressed as an endeavour rather than a fixed act, and that the provision does not name which of the listed fields a given case needs, nor say whether a party's own expert opinion counts as professional knowledge the court utilises.
Your judgment
What in a file could show which professional fields the case called for, and whether the court in fact drew on them?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to oblige the court to obtain an expert opinion in a named situation, or if a court decision states when a failure to use professional knowledge makes the proceedings defective.