Part 5: Protection for victims and witnesses in court Section 67: Orders under section 91(14) of the Children Act 1989
Section 91(14) of the Children Act 1989 allows family courts to bar individuals from making further specified applications under that Act without permission of the court. These orders are known as section 91(14) orders or sometimes ‘barring orders’.
	Section 67 inserts a new section 91A into the Children Act 1989 which makes further provision about the circumstances in which the court may make an order under section 91(14) of that Act.
	This follows recommendations made by the Ministry of Justice’s Expert Panel in their report titled ‘Assessing Risk of Harm to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases’, published in June 2020.
	New section 91A(2) provides that the circumstances in which the court may make such an order include where the court is satisfied that the making of a further application under that Act, by any person to be named in the order, would put the child concerned, or another individual, at risk of harm.
	New section 91A clarifies that barring orders are available to parents and children to protect them where further proceedings would risk causing them harm, in particular where proceedings could be a form of continuing domestic abuse.
	The broad concept of ‘harm’ is used, as defined in section 31(9) of the Act, so as to include but not limit the circumstances to domestic abuse.
	New section 91A(3) provides for a narrower definition of ‘harm’ to be applied by the court where the person referred to in section 91A(2) is not a child i.e. ill-treatment or the impairment of physical or mental health. This is because the definition of ‘harm’ in the 1989 Act includes elements specific to a child, such as impairment of development.
	New section 91A(4) makes it clear that where a person who has been named in any barring order subsequently applies for leave, the court must consider whether there has been a material change of circumstances since the barring order was made.
	New section 91A(5) clarifies that a section 91(14) order can be made by the court of its own initiative, or pursuant to an application by a person who could be put at risk of harm by a further application, by or on behalf of the child concerned or by any other person who is a party to the application. New section 91A(6) clarifies that the child concerned is the child referred to in section 91(14).