Out-of-Court Custody Dispute Resolution in Sweden—A Journey Without Destination

Abstract

This contribution is a descriptive overview of alternative legal proceedings in custody conflicts in Swedish law. The relationship between the development of Swedish substantive family law and the effort to prevent parents from battling in court, is compared with the practical outcome of these efforts. The author notes the mechanisms put in place to avoid the initiation of formal judicial proceedings, such as: availability of cooperation talks (which can be initiated both by the parents themselves and by the court), mediation, and a mandatory information meeting. She describes the role of social services and the courts in these disputes, finding that the responsibility they have towards one another and in relation to the parents, is not always clearly defined in the law. She further identifies a number of challenges relating to how the regulation functions in practice. For example, the appointment of an independent mediator, which is relied upon in only 1–3% of cases. She argues that parents in custody disputes often have problems incompatible with the image of parents on which the custody dispute process was designed. The system lacks what could be described as diagnostic tools and that the Swedish out-of-court processes are too rigid, in the sense that they only fit some of the families targeted. They are not sufficiently adapted to the varying and often complex needs of a modern family.