Hi there,
My partner is going through family law process. Interim orders have been made.
I have been with my partner for 18 months now. He has just become self represented due to not being able to afford any more legal fees. His ex has Legal Aid. I have just received an email to my work email address from the Legal Aid Solicitor that they are going to Subpoena my police records and they have asked for my date of birth and residential address. She also says in the email that if I don't reply then they will serve me with the Subpoena via email.
I have nothing to hide but are they allowed to do this. I am not apart of the case and I am unsure how to respond to the Solicitors email.
Thank you for your time.
Hi Jamie,
I have actually just been through this very recently in my own family court parenting matter where I am the Respondent Mother to the matter. My parenting matter had been going on for over 3 years and I had remained a single mother until November last year when I commenced a relationship with my, now, partner. In January 2022 (2 months into my new relationship), the Applicant Father issued a subpoena to the Qld Police for the criminal records of my new partner. Now, there was also an ICL involved in my matter The schedule of documents required to be produced under the subpoena was an 'all records' request. So, as Tim raised, there are two issues here: (1) the question of relevance; and (2) whether the subpoena complies with the requirements under the FLR.
In relation to the question of relevance, I refer to the interpretation of the ICL in my matter whereby she determined my partner as 'relevant' in the circumstances that:
1. My partner was living with me and my son; and
2. I would be seeking orders at trial for my son to live with me.
Now, as the subpoena has been issued for 'all records', clearly this is a fishing exercise which is therefore in breach of the FLA. In saying that, I have seen many a subpoena issued over the years of my personal family court battle and I have never seen a criminal record subpoena being issued in any other way. Not saying that it's still the wrong thing to do, it just appears to perhaps be an unwritten acceptable provision for an exception, etc.
So, back to my matter - while was seeking final orders for my son to remain living with me, my partner and I were not living together. That being said, neither my partner nor I objected to the subpoena. While my partner had nothing to hide (note though I was not certain until I inspected to subpoena documents because let's face it, we had only been together for 2 months at the time, I deemed objecting would be taken by the Court/ICL as the exact opposite - that I was trying to hide something. I know this should not be the case, however, just because it shouldn't be taken that way doesn't stop the Judge's unconscious bias.......
