The rights of divorced fathers are set to be affected by new legislation regarding parents' relationships with their children, reports The Telegraph.
It had been expected that a youngster's right to a meaningful relationship with both parents would be enshrined in law, but this has reportedly been dropped from the document - meaning divorced fathers will have less of a legal grounding to see their offspring.
Divorce solicitors have seen groups such as Fathers 4 Justice lobby hard for better access to children for fathers in recent years. However, civil servant David Norgrove is said to have decided that the dropped proposal would have caused too much disruption to youngsters, since judges would be forced to allocate time.
In his original report earlier this year, Norgrove stressed that the welfare of the child must come before that of the parents.
He added: "If parents share carefully before separation they are more likely to do so successfully after separation. But where the converse applies, legislation cannot change that fact."
The Guardian noted that the revelations appear in the Family Justice Review, with Norgrove stating in the introduction that the decision to recommend against a legal assumption around shared parenting was reached "reluctantly". He also accepted that many people will be "disappointed".
Among the other recommendations in the report were for more specialist judges to deal with family law cases and for mediation to be considered more often.
