What is a Specific Issue Order?

A specific issue order allows the court to decide a specific question concerning the child’s welfare where those with parental responsibility cannot agree. Examples of specific issues that could be in dispute include:

• Education – which school a child will attend
• Religion – how much the child can be involved in practices of one parent’s religion, that the other parent does not consider to be in the child’s best interest. For example, a parent who is a Jehovah’s Witness, withholding their consent to the child receiving a blood transfusion
• Medical treatment – whether the child is to receive a particular type of treatment in preference to another.
• Relocation – where one parent wants to relocate with the child to another part of the country or abroad, permanently or temporarily, against the other parent’s wishes.

The court can give directions and impose conditions in prohibited steps orders and specific issues orders, directed towards any person:

• Who is named in the order as a person with whom the child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact
• Who is a parent of the child
• Who has parental responsibility for the child
• With whom the child is living.