Denmark drops 40-day target for high-conflict divorce meetings

The Danish Agency of Family Law has dropped its target of holding a first meeting within 40 days in difficult divorce cases, after missing the deadline in more than 80 percent of cases last year, DR reports.

Thousands of the most conflict-ridden cases involve suspicions of violence or mental illness, and parents who distrust their former partner’s ability to care for their children. Experts say long waits can deepen conflict and harm children’s well-being.

For several years, the agency was assessed against a target to call parents in these cases to a first meeting within 40 days. DR’s review of documents shows the target was missed in more than four out of five cases last year, with the share rising sharply. The target was removed this year.

“When deadlines are significantly exceeded, it raises an alarming flag,” said Karen Margrethe Dahl, a family sociologist and chief analyst at VIVE, the National Research and Analysis Centre for Welfare. Waiting can make everyday life difficult for families, she said, while escalating disputes, accusations and one parent preventing the other from seeing the children can make reconciliation harder.

The agency acknowledged that families waited too long for a first meeting last year. Cases built up as it introduced a new IT system and developed more efficient working methods. “We contact families much earlier than we did last year,” said Helle Ankersen, a department head at the agency. She said staff now speak with parents in conflict sooner and offer advice before the first meeting.

When the agency was established in 2019, then Social Affairs Minister Mai Mercado said earlier help to reduce conflict would benefit children. However, the Public Accounts Committee later found that the intended improvements in difficult divorce cases had not been achieved, with some cases sitting idle for half the time. In August, the National Audit Office reported that processing times had not improved significantly.

Danish Family Law Attorneys is concerned that the 40-day target has been dropped. Its chair, Helle Brandt, said people cannot find out how long they will wait for a meeting and warned that drawn-out cases put parents’ legal protections and children’s welfare at risk.

The agency says cases in the most difficult categories take an average of three months from receipt of an application to processing. A case can involve several applications, each of which takes time. The agency says it wants eventually to measure families’ total waiting time, but DR was unable to establish when that will happen. The National Audit Office said average processing times in 2025 were nearly unchanged from the first half of 2023. The agency introduced lean methods last year to improve the flow and efficiency of its casework.