Looking at possible remedies for the Family Court
The current focus of the Family Court is on ‘best interest of the child’. This, I would say, is something that is very difficult to determine. Also it ignores the presence of the parents, both mother and father and since the mother invariably ends up with the child, this makes the Family Court appear to be anti-father.
One possible remedy for this is to have the Family Court focus on the parent-child relationship. For every child in question there would be two parent-child relationships, one with the mother and one with the father. At the start of family court proceedings, if mediation fails, and it looks like the court will have to make a decision, these relationships would be assessed by a psychologist. The aim of the family court then would be to preserve parent-child relationships, while at the same time attempt to resolve disputes. Lawyers would be instructed to remove all references in affidavits that attack the spouses parent-child relationship. Parents would be given firmer instructions than at present about denigrating the other parent in front of the children. It is inevitable in most family court disputes that there are feelings surrounding marital separation to deal with and these often overflow into the area of parent-child relationships. The family court should emphasize and educate about the need to keep these separate, maybe providing parents with workshops run by organizations such as ParentLine.
Benefits of the parent-child focus:
The court would be required to recognize the importance of the parent. This is especially beneficial to fathers, who, with the current focus on the child, tend to miss out, and feel that the court is anti-father. Getting on side with the father means that, the chances of material and emotional support from both parents and not just the ‘custodial’ parent is more likely. It also makes the chances of shared parenting work better. Ultimately it has got to be better for the child if both parent-child relationships are preserved, not to mention being better for the father and mother.
Features:
The parent-child focus would require the parents to work on having the (negative) marital issues that separate them be countered by the (positive) parent-child relationships that draw them together (or at least draw them to their children). Parents have to learn to separate their relationship with the ex-spouse from that which they have with their children. The family court is a large enough institution to create the culture for this to happen.
The parent-child focus would require some complex assessments and psychological involvement in order to guide the court. It would be hoped that time currently spent on time-wasting adversarial contests could instead be used for this task and that parents would learn to be better parents as a result of the process.
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Fair enough. This thread has gone way off course anyway.
I like your responses too, and I have enjoyed this discussion.
Kent,
Conflate, conflate, conflate. Sidestep, sidestep, sidestep. distract, distract, avoid the issue.
You say –
I see. So having something as huge as the vote is merely an extension of having a door opened for you. It had nothing to do with feminist agitation, chaining themselves to railings, throwing themselves under carriages, demonstrating in the streets.
Gosh, I must remember to take advantage of the fact that youngsters have started to step aside and let me pass on the footpath because of my age these days. Who knows what privelige I might be able to extract!
LOL!
Again you conflate. This time from preexisting privelige (door opening, to an ENTIRELY NEW PRIVILEGE namely the vote.
That make no sense IMO. It’s a debased argument which rationalises and in certain circumstances can be a recipe for disaster.
By the way, I dropped in on your POCAS front page. A good initiative.
Julie,
Sorry for the repulsive imagery.
Wow I can’t believe you guys have debated so long.
I feel the answers are simple.
Anyone entering the judiciary for any reason expects justice. That is to say that rules and laws are upheld. However, the secrecy of the Family Court, the extremely broad descretionary powers of judges, the desire of lawyers to line thier pockets by encouraging adversial approaches, the reliance of often ‘warped’ psychologist reports and the dismal response of the system to investigate complaints and initiate improvements all add to this injust system which simply does not put the interests of children first and is rapidly adding to huge problems in our society.
Scrap the Family Court and simply have one district Court, as current name suppression laws can protect those who’s identities need to remain private.
In the mean time, legislation needs to be modified to ensure that both parents are treated equally (current anti-descrimination laws already opperate effectively in most other arenas), and that rules of evidence protect parties and children from false alegations. Parties making false allegations (especially where protection orders and the ‘use’ of the refuge system is involved) and committing perjury should be dealt with using current laws. We all know that perjury is common place in the Family Court, but how many people have actually been prosecuted?
The crazy thing is that we already have a judicial system in this country with strict rules and laws, which can have a person caught stealing a car stereo through the system within days in a just, non-descriminatory and efficient way, yet our children and fragmenting families must wait years and pay tens of thousands of dollars and all too often there are following out-cries of injustice, corruption and harm to our children.
Simply put, if the Family Court can not opperate under the same rules as the rest of the judiciary, then it should be scapped.
This is my opinion.
Good opinion, Wayne
It cannot because it does not. Most of the things that the Family Court rules over are not clear cut. There are few clear cut laws for marital separation and no clear cut laws for who should have the children. The kind of simplicity you are looking for might lead to a law which states that the mother should always have the children, end of story.
Another example: there is no clear cut law for a protection order. No doubt there are times when a protection order is required. There are laws for assault and harrassment so does the court wait for these laws to be transgressed before taking action? In the court, it might take months for someone to be convicted, meanwhile they might have easy access to the mother to continue with their behaviour. It was for the immediate safety of children that the FC was given its powers, since, if anyone has been through marital separation involving children, the emotions evoked are extremely intense.
In my experience with the FC at no time did I find myself dealing with clear cut laws that a court could deal with decisively.
This happens in any court.
I empathise with your thoughts, Wayne, but there is no easy solution to any problem. If you have specific concerns, then the idea is to find a way to deal with them that helps to solve them.
Thanks, Stephen.
Zeal,
Your statement is nonsensical and defies logic.
Identifying root cause where complex interrelationships exist can only begin afterr the problem is correctly defined.
You are talking about mitigating symptoms, not removing cause. You are talking about symptoms becuse you dont understand the problem. Worse than that you give up because a solution may be difficult.
Despite evidence to the contary,you cant think outside your square.
Why do we have an adverserial family (f)law system.
Begin to understand the adverserial system and you might begin to understand the problem.
Its not too difficult.
Regards
Scrap
Read some Demming.