de Facto Family in UK Law

This may be capable of being found and recognised as such by the ordinary man where the link would be strictly familial had there been a marriage, or where the link is through adoption of a minor, de jure or de facto, or where the link is 'step', or where the link is 'in-law' or by marriage.

The hall marks of the relationship were essentially that there should be a degree of mutual inter-dependence, of the sharing of lives, of caring and love, of commitment and support. In respect of legal relationships these are presumed, though evidently are not always present as the family law and criminal courts know only too well. In de facto relationships these are capable, if proved, of creating membership of the tenant's family.

The right to receive a copy of Form C6A is not limited to those who are able to establish that they are entitled to the protection of Article 8. The right to receive a copy of Form C6A exists for the benefit of every father whom a local authority 'believes to be a parent without parental responsibility for the child' irrespective of whether or not that parent has de facto family ties.

The test has to be whether the relationship of the appellant to the deceased was one where there is at least a broadly recognisable de facto familial nexus. I would not define that familial nexus in terms of its structures or components: I would rather focus on familial functions. The question is more what a family does rather than what a family is. A family unit is a social organisation which functions through its linking its members closely together.

The ordinary man has to consider whether a man or a woman is a member of a family in the light of the facts, and whatever may have been held before Dyson v. Fox I do not think a judge, putting himself in. The time has gone bywhen the courts can hold such a union not to be 'familial' simply because the parties to it do not pretend to be married in due form of law.

The Strasbourg case law recognises that in some instances family life arises ipso jure. That is so in the case of a lawful and genuine marriage, both in respect of the relationship between husband and wife and also (see the passage in Berrehab v The Netherlands at para [21] that I quoted in paragraph [58] above) the relationship between the parents and their children. The same principle applies in relation to the children of de facto unions.

Where the complaint is that there has been culpable delay in the administrative processes necessary to determine and to give effect to an Article 8 right, the approach of both the Strasbourg Court and the Commission has been not to find an infringement of Article 8 unless substantial prejudice has been caused to the applicant.