Submission to Minister Justice – different time delays for litigants
Mike Wilding has been protesting outside Mr. John Key’s house in Parnell, complaining about excessive time delays in the family court, delaying and preventing his children from seeing him, for two years now.
Mike Wilding has passed his complaint on to Simon Powers Minister for Justice, who has agreed to look into time delays in any chronologies/cases submitted to his office. Although other issues are not guaranteed to be investigated, we will be highlighting other gross problems, such as decisions made against the evidence available to the family court, breaching rights of appeal by making them nugatory etc.
Please consider to supply your family court chronology and case file, to Mike or myself, for inclusion into this Justice Department invesitgation into the quality of the family court.
We are planning to copy these chronology/case files to several of the newspapers and stations that have given reasonable coverage to family court problems, Dominion, NZHerald, Sunday Star Times, Truth, TV3 and TV1 and maybe radio stations too, if the person agrees to this. These would be supplied in confidence, that is not for publication. (At present 6 people said yes and 1 no to sending their complaint to the media outlets.)
If you would like to add your file into the Justice Department investigation, then please forward a copy of it to me, if possible before the 14th of January 2008. You will also need to be available to sign the letter of transmittal, along with all of the other people. A copy on CD would be more convenient, than paper, but if you can only supply a paper copy, that will be fine. Please discuss with me by telephone, before sending anything. ph 09 638 7275
For the people who are available in Auckland, we hope to have a public signing in Parnell, with a toast as the courier bag is sealed, just prior to despatching to Simon Powers.
At present, we have 7 complete files ready to be submitted on the 18th January, but the Justice Department have said that they want to see the breadth of the problem. They are challenging us that there is really no significant problem at all!
This is not as good as a proper Commission of Enquiry, as requested by Wayne Pruden, but it could be a step on the way, if enough people support Mike’s initiative. If the number of cases supplied is small, then National will have justification for not making positive changes to the family court.
If you have concerns about blackmail by family court, please discuss these issues. There are no difficulties about supplying files to Justice Department (as they already have them anyway!). The copies to the media would be supplied in confidence, ie not for publication with names included.
If you would like to see two example chronologies, please contact me.
Please support Mike’s initiative and drive it through!
After submission, there will be more work to support these complaints so that something gets done. This will involve us also analysing the chronologies for signs of bias in the timings, bias and presenting this to the media who were supplied with the files.
Capital letters supplied separately FCFCFCFCFC.
Best regards, MurrayBacon.
I support Murray and Wayne’s initiative. In my case the Family Caught has only delayed me seeing my daughters six months, but I expect I’m only half way through the process. My heart goes out to Wayne. I would be happy to support this cause.
Comment by Gerry — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 12:07 am
This is awesome, Murray.
Comment by julie — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 12:13 am
It is an important issue of course, but it seeems a bit like fixing the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Comment by Hans Laven — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 9:17 am
Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy. I have tried to solve this, by cutting my problems out with a knife. It never seemed to work that well, as the problems always eventually came back. I tried running away, but I took my problems with me. I considered axe-murder, but I still wanted to enjoy life. Chemicals worked well, harm was done, but no valuable solutions came of it. Chancy driving was exhilarating, but still didn’t solve the underlying issue.
When I give up, without even entering into the fray – I may have avoided a visible defeat, but I am defeated at my own hands. For me, this is the most cruel and needless of all defeats.
Two counsellors helped me greatly, where prescriptions and psychologists had failed.
The hardest part of strategy, is finding the direction. You have that already.
Mike and I haven’t promised any degree of success. On the other hand, I have suggested a strategy for making the best of a possible no-success. What suggestions or material can you add?
Numbers of cases is critically important, to persuading politicians who don’t really want to dirty their hands, or take money away from their familycaught-extortioner-friends.
I used to find facing familycaught past to be the most fearsome demon. By facing the past, you can set yourself free in time (so can death). There is more to life, when these demons have lost their illusion of power. Thus, through apparent defeat – at the very least – can come personal advantage.
Cheers, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 11:32 am
Murray,
I wish you well.
A Question Is the numbers of cases is the important charterisctic?
For example John has been deprived of time with his children for six months.Knowing that John is seeking shared care thats 12hours x 6 Momth (Say 170 days) = 2040hours of lost parenting time per child . Its a crude measure but could be easily established into a scale (Broken Heart Scale) that matched to likely outcomes for childrenwhen parents are removed from their lives by long drawn out litigation..
The officals will argue delay isregrettable but justified as the Best Interest of the Child is Paramount the key is to show that current policy is in fact working against the best interst of the child. Thats why I question the numbers of cases as a being critical. I note that a qualitative approach does not require huge numbers of examples.
I just think that this would place a different spin on the information being presented.
Doing something is good. Succeeding in acheiving a goal is better.
I can understand where Hans is comming from and tend to agree, but that doesnt mean you should not proceed with your action.
Regards
Scrap
Comment by Scrap_The_CSA — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 2:00 pm
Scrap, thanks for your ideas and encouragement.
I agree that quality of complaints is important, as trivial complaints will not motivate the work required to make legislative or administrative changes.
To get the worst cases, we probably need a large number to be supplied, for us to choose from….. In addition to the public request for support, we have already made enquiries from people we believed had heart rending cases and cases where timing issues linked directly to caught malpractice. This is the 7 cases I have mentioned.
Numbers are also important.
Wayne Pruden obtained over 1000 sugnatures and that was sufficient that the Social Services Committee did not want to be seen publicly turning down his request. (So the petition lingers on like a brain removed zombie, neither dead nor alive – just waiting for additional political force to take it back to life, or to the place where petitions die.)
Many “men’s issues” protests attract 5 or 10 or 30 attendees. This doesn’t place much pressure onto politicians. Even if all of them voted one way or t’other, it wouldn’t shift one marginal seat in Parliament!
1000 marchers protesting at the slaughter of Palestinian non-combatants is putting real pressure onto Government and Opposition.
If we would like an issue, such as different time delays at familycaught to influence politicians, we really need about 5000+ cases to be supplied. It seems that we have a long distance to go.
If only a few cases are supplied, then the initial submissions are very unlikely to have any political impact and we can safely assume that familycaught is doing a good job, that 99.9998% of men and women are happy to support?
For all of the moaning in the world, positive actions require just that – action!
Thanks, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 3:07 pm
Hi Scrap (#5). I think the Broken Heart Scale is a great idea. Calculated in days of parenting contact lost.
Hans
Comment by Hans Laven — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 4:51 pm
The delay is not accidental. The delay’s purpose is to severe the children’s bond with their father. The court by now has paid expensive Barnados courses where they teach them about safety, safety from their dad that is.
Removing a child from his/her parent (mum or dad) is a criminal and immoral.
The debate should start here and not whether there are any delays.
A court that issues protection orders just on hearsay has no reason to be.
A court that issues protection orders for life has no reason to be
A court that orchestrates violence against children ( removal from dad) has no reason to be.
CYF under attack over hundreds of deaths
Comment by tren:Christchurch family court victim — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 5:33 pm
Dear Tren, I agree that there are many issues more important, than delays in familycaught. However, the Justice Department have offered to look at this issue whereas they have refused to address many other complaints made about the familycaught. If complaints made about delays are upheld, then it will be more difficult for them to refuse to address the other complaints.
If people have gathered together their file documents, then this work will likely be essential, to support complaints made about other issues. To my way of thinking, this makes the preparation worthwhile anyway?
I am certainly not discouraging people making other complaints to the Justice Department. I am sure that they receive several thousand complaints each year.
One day, they will realise that they can improve their performance and reduce their costs by listening and responding constructively to complaints made about their performance.
Whether an organisation chooses to respond to complaints is really an issue of integrity.
Organisations who have monopoly power, can more easily throw complaints in the rubbish tin, or even maltreat people who submit complaints.
In the end these behaviours result in the loss of their monopoly priviledge. I believe that this needs to be done to the judiciary, to assist them to behave with respect to the public and to help them to rise up to a professional level.
Best regards, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 8:30 pm
Sometimes just heart is enough.
Comment by julie — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 9:00 pm
Don’t Quit
Author Unknown
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and its turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When they might have won, had they stuck it out.
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit,
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit!
Comment by julie — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 9:10 pm
Good reasoning Murray (poster # 9). It’s a very important initiative that could help lead to improvements concerning the issue of delays and concerning broader matters affecting outcomes for children. Interesting though, isn’t it, that outcomes for children are not even measured?.
Comment by Hans Laven — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 10:26 pm
Dear Hans, thanks for your encouragement.
I guess that Justice Department have opted for something which is very easily measured, rather than something which is relevant to quality of care of children or justice. this allows the analysis to be performed by clerks or in a spreadsheet. This might sound snide, but it is practical, as any other types of issues can quickly bog down under the massive amounts of work, to verify them.
This is rather similar to the daily operations of the familycaught, where (despite the obligation to make decisions based on the best interests of the child in the particular individual case) they make simple dull rote decisions, based on lazy assumptions – even when relevant and good quality evidence was supplied! Such rote decisions really only require a clerk or a PC to make them, so it appears unnecessary and wildly uwasteful to employ “judges”.
Still, I suggest that they are making some offer to address problems and rather than criticise, I would prefer to supply information in good faith and try to develop a working relationship, so that in time, the relevant and important issues might be addressed, for the benefit of our grandchildren.
For them to agree to look into “problems” in the familycaught, seems to show some willingness to consider possibly moving forward.
NZ does seem to be slipping further and further behind Australia, in child custody and [spousal and] child support matters. We are slow, even at simply copying Australia. The obvious reason, is the vested financial interests that legal workers have, in protecting their personal interests above the “paramount interests of the children”!
Cheers, MurrayBacon the impulsive impatient obsessive axe-murderer.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 11:14 pm
If we would like an issue, such as different time delays at familycaught to influence politicians, we really need about 5000+ cases to be supplied.
Look at the Save Happy Valley Group or the Herceptin Campgain. They have very small numbers but both have been highly successfull,
Qualitatively you could probably get away with 20 -50 cases exaimned systematically in depth.
Adressing symptoms in a complex set of processes and interlocks is a difficult exercise in analysis, as mitigating symptons frequently transfers the problem upstream of downstream in the process flow.
Traditionally symptoms are data points used to help identify the cause of the problem or confirm that the root cause of problem has been removed. When the problem no longer exists the symptoms should not occur.
This is a traditional problem solving approach. The methodology is tried and proven. There are other approaches that may be more useful in dealing with this type of issue. Accepting that the current state is not delivering the required output rather than remove the cause a solutions focused problem solving methodology is applied. What is the required Future Perfect State? This also removes a lot of agrument as blame is less of a focus. It also clearly articulates your required outcome.
Murray would suggest you take the Solutions Focused Approach. Happy to provide further info.
Hans, yes it is bemusing that the outcomes for children are not neasured, rather they are assumed. Thats the power of ideology for you.
Regards
Scrap
Comment by Scrap_The_CSA — Wed 7th January 2009 @ 11:35 pm
@Murray,
I agree entirely. Thanks for all your hard work.
Regards.
Comment by tren:Christchurch family court victim — Thu 8th January 2009 @ 5:20 pm
I fully support this initiative. We have the attention of the authorities on something and the opportunity to expose some of what they are doing. That the system tolerates time delays is only one of the many ways in which it damages children and in which its underlying ideology is based on false premises. That is further evidenced by the fact that after long delays usually depriving children of full relationships with father, it is eventually ruled that the status quo should continue because that is what the child has now become used to. The issue of delays will be seen to be the tip of the iceberg, the external mole that reflects a deep underlying cancer.
Comment by blamemenforall — Thu 8th January 2009 @ 10:57 pm
Dear BMFA,
full support would be sending me your chronology, supported by a copy of your file, ready to send in with 8 others.
Mike has brought forward the submission date to Monday 11th January, for the first batch of 4 and the following 4 will go in on the 18th of January.
I hope I can persuade you to take [positive] action, rather than just easy talk?
The Government challenge is that the majority of men are not disatisfied enough to put together a letter of complaint, sign it and post it. [I am scared that they are right!]
Best regards, Murray Bacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 9th January 2009 @ 8:50 pm
I fully and whole heartedly support this initiative and especially now that i have finally found your site after hearing of your submission a couple of years ago. My husband and I have been in a the family court system now for 6 years and my step daughters are eight years old. We have only just restored partial access after they were taken to Australia illegally for 8mths after the mother refused us access over the xmas break (conveniently when the courts are closed and uplifting orders are unobtainable) and being hit with a child support bill from Australia of over $10K. Although our cases are slightly different in that we have partial access to our girls the fight is the same. We fully support your fight against this system and any outcome is better than none!
Comment by frustrated@system — Thu 15th January 2009 @ 8:41 pm
After i complained about a serious case of unprofessionalism by counsel for child (CfC) and by a report writer (who wasn’t even of the profession he was supposed to be, more to that later)i got blackmailed by CfC with contact to my daughter and as a direct consequence (and the other party and her lawyer working together with CfC and coming up with unfounded reasons for it) i had to wait 22 month for a hearing while contact was suspended, while at the hearing it was found that there was “no evidence before the court to suggest that Mr.XXXX could not have contact with YYYYY”. After 9 month of contact they realised i was to complain again and contact was suspended again(again because of the other party working together with CfC….)despite all the evidence speaking against a suspension…., and again my daughter hasn’t been able to see her father for 5 month and is not likely to because i will not give in to the blackmailing.(see my story and the evidence of more corruption/conspiracy of the family court in future submissions by me) [email protected]
Comment by FIF — Wed 21st January 2009 @ 11:27 am
Mike Wilding has the first 6 complaints and supporting files. They will be forwarded to Justice Department during the next week. I have a further 4 files and if suitable, they will be tidied up and sent in the next few weeks.
If anyone else would like to add their file into this complaint about time delays, please send it to Mike Wilding or myself ASAP.
If you have a friend who should send in a complaint, please tell them about this campaign to help the familycaught to work properly and cost effectively.
When the time delay complaints are sent in, then I am hoping that these same people will consider to send their complaint and files to United Nations, as Human Rights complaints:
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/db75d42e27c8d0a4c1257307004af6a7?Opendocument
Best regards, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 21st January 2009 @ 1:36 pm