When I was younger and had never seen the inside of a caughtroom, I thought legislation guided judges, in rather clearly defined manner.

Having seen several caught cases proceed, I eventually came to the conclusion that more often than not, Parliament and legislation is several years behind changes in judge’s behaviour. Tail wagging the dog? This is politely called “judicial activism”, but less charmingly may be called malpractice, incontinence, senility, hormonality or corruption.

This leaves quite a large element of chance, as to whether Parliament will decide to catch up or not?
I do not recommend gambling with your children in a NZ familycaught$. It is wiser to just have more children.

Such an observation is worrying, when we remember that Parliamentarians are subject to several forms of accountability to the adult public, whereas NZ judges have subverted all attempts to offer them accountability to the public. This leaves them more poorly supervised than real estate agents and legal workers. The Judicial Complaints Office is funded for a Commissioner for signing letters, but not sufficiently to allow any investigative work. In any case, judges can resign with the knowledge that any investigation is then terminated (even if funds were to be provided).

Please observe that this thesis contains praise for NZ’s international reputation in law. That may have come from one of judge boshier’s speeches?

By way of example, the large ramp up in younger middle aged men’s suicides occurred in 1975 – 5 years before the familycaught$ formally came into action as a separate caught. When causality is seen as action and response, then this ramp up in suicides occurred before the familycaught$ came into existence, this seemingly would acquit the familycaught$ of being the cause (and thus subject to being prosecuted for manslaughter).

However, when judicial activism and corruption are considered, then such prosecutions do appear to be necessary, now for about 4500 cases.
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CHILDREN: HEARD BUT NOT LISTENED TO?
AN ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN’S VIEWS IN DECISION MAKING UNDER S6 OF
THE CARE OF CHILDREN ACT 2004.
by Antoinette Robinson Otago Law School
http://www.otago.ac.nz/law/oylr/2010/Antoinette_Robinson.pdf

CONCLUSION
This paper has shown that ‘a change in law will not deliver a true change, if the change
is not the result of a change in attitude.’
286 Despite the clear legislative intent in
enacting s6, Family Court professionals involved in its application have not substantially
altered their practices from the prior provision in s23 of the Guardianship Act. This
suggests that Family Court professionals have not internalised the Childhood Studies or
Socio-Cultural principles which influenced the changes to s6, and form part of the multidisciplinary account of child development accepted at law, now known as
Developmental Science.
287 This paper has attempted to identify avenues which can be
pursued to change the attitude of those involved in the application of s6 in order to
ensure s6 is applied as it was intended to be. Once judges, lawyers acting for children,
and psychologists appointed under s133 COCA have been trained comprehensively in
Childhood Studies and Socio-cultural Theory, they will be in a much better position to
assist children and take account of their views in the way s6 intends. When this occurs,
New Zealand will deserve its reputation as an international leader in child-inclusive
policies, as children will not only be heard, but they will be listened to.