Samenvatting

This is a letter written by Brigitte Chin-A-Fat to the late Peter Hoefnagels, who was one of the Dutch pioneers in the field of divorce mediation and a professor of criminology and family law at Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 1997, TMD published an article from his hand in which he wrote how he had become inspired by the potential of divorce mediation and about his (first) experiences with this ‘new’ mode of dispute resolution in family disputes. The original article by Peter Hoefnagels, dating from 1997, is reproduced in 2021 in TMD in view of its relevance today and precedes the letter by Brigitte Chin-A-Fat.
Hoefnagels invented the so-called ‘divorce announcement’ and introduced psychology to the legal world of divorce and family mediation. Anno 2021, there are many (legal) developments which are bound to have an impact on the reform of Dutch divorce procedure.
The Dutch government has set up pilot projects experimenting with inter alia a ‘joint access’ to the family court. Many of these developments are in line with Hoefnagels’ suggestions to avoid harm being inflicted on the ex-spouses and notably their children to the largest extent possible. The author discusses some of the current pilot projects and connects the rationale underlying these experiments to Hoefnagels’ ideas as presented 25 years ago. She also looks into the future, notably which changes are likely to occur in the next 25 years in the field of divorce mediation.