Which family court has jurisdiction over a family mediation case, and can the parties settle on a family court themselves?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In a practice file we read the mediation application, since the relief it seeks identifies the corresponding family litigation or family non-contentious case, and then any paper on which the parties record which family court they have agreed on, because the provision turns on one route or the other.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading treats the two routes in the provision as alternatives, so a family mediation case belongs either to the family court that has jurisdiction over the corresponding family litigation or family non-contentious case, or to a family court the parties have settled on by agreement.
Another reading notes that the provision says which court has jurisdiction but does not say what makes a family litigation or family non-contentious case the corresponding one, and that the second paragraph applies to a family mediation case only the provisions it lists, without this provision stating what those provisions require or how they shape the jurisdiction named in the first paragraph.
Your judgment
Where a mediation application seeks relief that could correspond to more than one family case, how could the file show which court's jurisdiction that correspondence points to?
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 define the corresponding case or to change which provisions are applied to family mediation cases by the second paragraph, or if a court decision explains what makes a case corresponding or how the applied provisions work with the first paragraph.