Family law encompasses divorce, adoption, wardship, child abduction and parental responsibility.
The fact that same sex couples could get a marriage or a civil partnership, but opposite sex couples were precluded from civil partnerships led to a legal challenge in the UK Supreme Court—R (on the application of Steinfeld and Keidan) v Secretary of State for International Development.
[1] The inequality of treatment between opposite and same sex couples created by the introduction of civil partnerships as a stepping stone towards marriage equality was considered a breach of Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the court issued a declaration of incompatibility.
An attempt to reform the divorce procedure was included as part of the Family Law Act 1996, but it did not take effect.
Important or difficult decisions, however, are published on the internet both by the Court Service and by the British and Irish Legal Information Institute.
The list below contains many of the Statutory Instruments that have a bearing on family law, which are available from the Office of Public Sector Information.