Family Court Stressed
Radio NZ Article
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/316515/family-court-delays-at-tipping-point,-lawyers-say
Includes two interviews with father’s stories.
MENZ Issues: news and discussion about New Zealand men, fathers, family law, divorce, courts, protests, gender politics, and male health.
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No surprises here. And when the courts don’t do things like send back to mediation in a situation where the mother was “too busy due to study”, then they make the situation worse.
18 months to date for a disagreement to get a kid screened for a disability that affects learning…and the kid has just failed to get her major NCEA 1 internal assessment.
Comment by Quirky Friend — Wed 26th October 2016 @ 7:16 pm
Psycologists are hard to get to do the work.
Report one August “mummy hasn’t bonded with the children but dad has. Dad applies for primary care.
12 weeks later good news mummy has now bonded with the children (12 weeks after the first report and 2 weeks before the hearing to Change primary care. There was no professional I tear entire and mummy has now now bonded (can’t have dad with a custody application with grounds – no, just get another report ( from the same psycologist)
Custody did not change (surprise surprise)
18 months later gee mummy hasn’t bonded with the boy after all.
Same psycologist for three reports Jo Leach.
This makes a change from the Family Court directions with out any evidence – at least there was evidence to enable the Judge to support the directions. I say predetermined precooked garbage. But for my son, a bloody disgrace, disgusting.
So good job there are too few around.
The Family Court Process is not in trouble, expensive, biased and sadly broken now, it has been for decades, it has shaped our society in many respects and contributed to our appalling child abuse by seeing good dads (natural protector of their children) off, leaving mummies new “poke” (intimate partner) to abuse the children. We know the statics, mummies new dick is 50 times more likely to abuse a child than their natural father.
So keep it up, there will be no fathers left and more mummies new boyfriends to abuse away. What of mummy in all of this? Well it’s the new boyfriend doing the abuse, not poor mummy, no, no she, well she is ok, nothing to see there.
Get down on spurious allegations.
Get a complaints process which matters, the existing one is more crappy than the last one the LCRO is apparently 3 years behind in dealing with complaints agains lawyers.
Get a juducial complaints process that the public can have faith in.
Change the complaints process for court appointed psycologists, after all, we now have to complain about the aforementioned example re psycologists to the Very Court that appointed them – excuse me, have faith – yea right!
After this we might get somewhere in the mean time good and ok fathers continue to give up in their droves, what a disgrace this process is, judge Ryan, Amey you want to try your own process sometime, then Ms Adams, you would become very aware of the delays and utter crap fathers and children have endured for years and still it goes on.
“Court of Injustice” by Lauren Quaintaince was written in 2001, have a read and compare it to 15 years later 2016 and we might ask what has changed?
Then we can get somewhere
Comment by Simon grant — Wed 26th October 2016 @ 7:57 pm
It seems as though A couple of people are surprised at the surge in “urgent – without notice applications in the Family Court.
This is the type of application which attracts legal aid.
This is the type of application which has tight rules around it’s usage. For serious matters of imminent danger or a child being removed perhaps. When this is misused perhaps just because this type of application attracts legal aid) and a father doesn’t see the children for months and the children don’t see their dad for months who are you going to complain to?
Oh yea it’s the Law Society standards committee. If you are not happy with the way the old boys are looking after each other you an escalate your compliant to the Legal Complaints Review Officer ( he is apparently 3 years behind in processing complaints escalated to the office of the LCRO) but nothing is done about this it appears. Perhaps Justice delayed becomes too good for those who don’t want any change other than more delays? Who would do that?
Comment by Simon grant — Wed 26th October 2016 @ 8:57 pm
The 2014 FC changes foolishly provided major incentive for false allegations because these now get fast tracked into court without having to pay and they are readily approved for legal aid. Just beyond belief that any government would be so stupid as to believe that women wouldn’t tell lies using a system that provides such incentives to do so. The head of Women’s Refuge and others have admitted that women now ‘try the without notice route’ because of the incentives. Incredible, an institutionalized system for abusing children by wrecking their relationship with one parent, almost always the father.
Comment by Man X Norton — Wed 26th October 2016 @ 9:59 pm
It seems that we need to appoint more judges!!!!!
Alternatively, if they actually disciplined parents who misbehave, cases would be sorted rather quickly. Then more judges could go on holiday and be made redundant.
Funny how no-one disciplines judges, regarding the quality or lack thereof in their work. Maybe we should be disciplining judges regularly?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 26th October 2016 @ 10:57 pm
It’s the juducial conduct commissioner.
Oh yes, we are supposed to have faith in this regime.
I understand that their office has had over 1500 complaints about the conduct of judges and the good news is that two, yes that’s right two have been upheld so the other 1498 had no merit.
That perhaps only two have behaved inappropriately is supposed to mean that here in NZ we are a beacon of honesty and transparency.
It could mean something else of course.
Comment by Simon grant — Wed 26th October 2016 @ 11:22 pm
Does Ms Adams’s comments seem “out of touch” or “selectively un aware”, “too lofty to even care” about delays for children and their father’s.
Mummy said dad did it, he’s guilty and that will do it. No kids now, your health, the cops, stress, missing the children, trying to a good job for them in supervised care – why, well because mummy said and that’s the system and that’s all it takes.
$6,000 to defend a protection order application, after two attempts front the mother, each going to a full hearing with out the nut getting her prized order, for her third attempt I said have it because I couldn’t be bothered a third time.
Her first attempt her demeanor when giving evidence was un impressive, she was prone to exaggeration. no protection order and a cost award against her ($25) per week – yippie.
This court process enabled the nut to apply again – successfully defended – but wait there is more, the third attempt.
You would think that the court must stop the nut making more legally aided applications.
But no, carry on nut because you are mummy, you can say what you like, with total impunity, and simply keep applying.
Comment by Simon grant — Wed 26th October 2016 @ 11:41 pm
The legal workers are just milking the public. It isn’t a joke, it impoverishes families.
Will it only end when satisfied customers shoot tens and hundreds of legal workers?
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 27th October 2016 @ 10:57 am
This family court process must be laughed at by some, the comments from our Justice Minister Ms Adams, the comments from principal Family Court Judge, the raido interviews, the children, their fathers.
Look why has happened in Naraughwhea. The perception is that the police are stoping old people at a check point so they can gather names of elderley people then go and question them!!
This goes on while a gang has to get P dealers from their township of 5000 people. The gang got rid of 14 p dealers.
Is this the job of our police or not?
When we have this going on can we honestly have any faith in the Family Court Process, the Police ? Amey Adams seems so pious she is out of touch and too lofty to even trifle with understanding what is happening in her biggest court jurisdiction in the country and doesn’t appear to do anything to demonstrate that she gives a toss for the kids and fathers.
It may be that Tribal Huk could be used to sort out the NZ Family Court process and shifty underhanded lawyers who pervert justice and contribute to the children’s plight after their father has had to go for his own preservation.
Doesn’t appear that the complaints Committie is effective or that the LCRO is. Perhaps in the end people just have a guts full and go do what Jamie Pink felt he had to. Took 10 days for 14 P Houses to be shut down. His methods might be a talking point but it seems to be effective, cost effective and instant.
The public are watching right across the age spectrum now and it is surprising that no one has done what the guy did in CYPS, in the Family Court.
Comment by Simon grant — Thu 27th October 2016 @ 6:36 pm
We all new that the Legal Aid jockeys would load up the “without notice” applications in order to have the legal aid tap turned on (after the reforms of 2014)
This is what has happened. Some would have us believe that the appalling backlog in the FC is as a result of the volume of “without notice” allegations.
Women’s Refuse are excusing women for using the without notice urgent parth
So who is going to do something about this?
The law society? – of course not, find against their members, that they have breached rules and process in order to perpetuate the legal aid gravey train.
The LCRO who sits a top the Law Society? Of course not, they have a three year back log “justice delayed is justice denied” you will be denied this by delay.
Why don’t the LCRO get more resourses? Of course not because the law society and the ministry of justice who fund and build the legislation around the function of the LCRO don’t want that.
The result, they carry on making with out notice applications (oh yea under instruction from their client yea right – good one) but get legal aid.
Dads give up, the kid turns into a meat head or gets abused by mummies new partner.
Why, because of the lawyers misuse the process and their own self governing body does nothing about that because they know there is a three year delay to get the matter escalated to the LCRO who it appears will not increase resource.
So the legal fraternity get legal aid, then when the kid turns into a meat head and is in and out of court the legal fraternity has long term income.
How to fix it.
All protection order applications were made with out notice prior to the reforms, this was standard.
The applications went to a “gatekeeper” type of judge who would decide if the matter was to be heard without notice or defended. Often the without notice application would be determined to be “on notice” giving the father the opportunity to defend it at a cost of about $6,000.
Options
Re introduce the gatekeeper, this actually was far better.
Get rid of the law society as a self governing body of its members
Get rid of the LCRO, it ain’t working.
Replace with people other than lawyers who understand the court rules.
Ramp up the LCRO and give them more power to fine, sanction lawyers
Put more onus onto the judges.
If an application is made with out notice and is not successful, come down real hard on the person making spurious allegations and their lawyer, fine the lawyer. At the end of the day there are some basics:
Police involvement, what was it and why (we know the guy was arrested so we don’t need to know that)
Medical attention what was it?
Photos
In the absence of this basic stuff, if the mother applies with out notice and doesn’t get there, fine her and her lawyer.
With the system as it is, more dads give up, mummies new boyfriend is free to abuse away and does. So the lawyers greed contributes to the plight of a child, that child being fatherless and a degraded society.
Fathers can not be expected to deal with this process, they must and should leave for their own preservation, perhaps before they leave they might liken the lawyers behaviour (under instruction of course) to that of the P dealer, wrecking their family (children) and opportunities in persuit of money.
In the news recently a guy called Jamie Pink had his own unique way of dealing with P dealers, frustrated at the process and lack of effort to rid their township of P, he and his associates bypassed process and ejected 14 p dealers from their small town in 10 days. Perhaps if nothing is done for long enough, that is what happens in the end.
Comment by Simon grant — Fri 28th October 2016 @ 12:33 am