2) ‘Family’ Courts (FC)
Other countries (most notably Saudi Arabia)
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/saudi/report.html
have (rightly) been criticised for having Court hearings in ’secret’ –
with the public and media excluded – but the UK has similar ‘Star
Chambers’ and they are known as the ‘Family’ Courts.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article…336608,00.html
Challenged to ECHR and lost by Dr Mike Pelling
B. v. the United Kingdom and P. v. the United Kingdom (36337/97 and
35974/97) No violation Article 6 § 1
Only the parents and their legal representatives have traditionally
been permitted to enter. Whilst it has been said that ‘Justice must
not just be done, it must be seen to be done’, the reverse is also
true – ‘Injustice must not be seen’. This ‘injustice’ is practiced
daily in the FC. The ‘argument’ in support of this secrecy was based
on the absurd notion that they were somehow ‘protecting the interests
of the children’. In fact, if the case was appealed to the Court of
Appeal, the parties would be identified by the first letter of their
names (e.g. Mr A and Ms B – as they are in the youth criminal courts),
so why this could not be permitted in the lower Courts is beyond me!
Prior to October 2005, it was ‘Contempt of Court’ (COC) to discuss
your FC case with anyone other than your legal representative, without
permission of the Court, in a manner that might permit the children to
be identified. This made it extremely difficult for
‘litigants-in-person’ (LIP -people with no legal representative) to
get help and advice, whether from Citizens Advice Bureaux, fathers’
organisations or even family and friends. Whilst an application for
permission was normally granted, the reality was that much of the
advice was technically COC. The change in October legalised the
practice and permitted discussions with a ‘McKenzie Friend’ (MF).
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20051976.htm
MF’s became popular following widespread dissatisfaction with the
legal professions’ institutional anti-father attitude and high cost as
well as the discriminatory way that Legal Aid is calculated (see
article on ‘tax credits and benefits’). The MF is a (normally)
non-legally qualified person who can provide (quietly!) ‘advice and
support’ to the LIP. Many fathers’ organisations provide lists of
suitable people, many who have greater experience in the FC and can be
valuable assets in the unequal fight. MF’s role in the FC is ‘at the
Judge’s discretion – they have no automatic right to be present.
However, there is now ’strong’ pressure on Judges to grant MF’s the
right to attend (but not to speak on behalf of their ‘clients’) – and
fathers have reported success when threatening to walk out of the
hearing at the start and appeal the Judge’s refusal to permit the MF
to attend. This is one small success of the fathers’ movement.
Effectively, the legal system is only available to the very poor and
the very rich (see Legal Aid section below). The vast majority in the
middle cannot afford the high cost of fighting a whole series of
bitter Court cases over many years in a hopeless attempt to achieve
slightly more ‘parenting time’. The legal profession has been accused
of deliberately prolonging the dispute to make more money out of the
parties. The ‘adversarial’ system (where lawyers try to ‘win’ at all
costs, by convincing the Judge that their argument is ‘right’ and the
other side’s argument is ‘wrong’) in the UK is entirely unsuitable for
children cases, where there is no clear ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ in an
on-going dispute. Some countries operate an ‘inquisitorial’ system,
whereby the Judge asks the questions (‘inquires’) to determine exactly
what has happened and the views of the parents. In this system, the
parties have little need of legal representation (so presumably the
legal profession would not support this approach!). For the FC, this
would seem far more appropriate, where the ‘truth’ is usually between
the two opposing positions and one person is neither entirely right
nor entirely wrong.
http://www.fassit.co.uk/secrecy_family_courts.htm
There are proposals for changing (slightly) the above system and
‘opening it up’ to (slightly) more publicity.
http://www.mensaid.com/fl-openjustic…mustchange.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5011464.stm
It is possible that a media representative may be allowed to report
on the proceedings in a limited and non-identifiable manner – one of
the (small) successes of the fathers’ movement, although actually
resulting from a much publicized (feminist) solicitor (Cabinet member
Harriet Harman’s sister Sarah Harman) being suspended from practicing
as a result of COC for naming a FC party. (Adversity makes strange
bedfellows!)
http://www.harmans-solicitors.co.uk/…wsvi.asp?ID=60
3) Children’s interests must be paramount
As it clearly states in the CA, in any matter concerning children,
‘the children’s interests must be paramount’. This mantra is used to
justify all kinds of absurd actions by the Courts, but is NEVER
defined! Everyone is ‘presumed’ to know what it means, without every
publicly stating the meaning. S1 of the CA lists all the ‘factors’ to
be taken into account, but cases have demonstrated that none of these
has priority, but all are relevant. The most glaring absence from the
list is the most important – outcomes. I would argue that the role of
parents is to bring children up to adulthood such that those children
become law-abiding, contributing, independent, happy, healthy
(mentally and physically) members of society (you can clearly add
further factors to this wish-list). In an ideal world, this should be
the guiding principle behind the Court’s decisions. In other words,
what can the Court do now to ensure, as far as reasonably possible,
that this child or these children have the best chance to fulfill that
wish-list? Whilst it is clearly impossible to predict with certainty
the outcome for any particular child, there are plenty of studies
available to indicate what is the likely outcome for most children in
a given set of circumstances and amazingly, these are never used,
presumably because they overwhelmingly disagree with the Court’s
normal judgments! There is no on-going monitoring of ‘outcomes’ even
for the cases heard in that particular Court or by a particular Judge!
A Judge can never know whether he was right or wrong in a particular
judgment (unless he later sits in a criminal case where the children
return as defendants – common if he gets his decision wrong!).
Since the overwhelming result of Court action is a ‘winner’ (normally
the mother) and a ‘loser’ (normally the father – and hence the
children), with the ‘winner’ getting Residence and the ‘loser’ getting
a derisory amount of ‘Contact’ (parenting time), it is amazing that
there is no (or negligible) statistical evidence to support this
approach as being in the best interests of the children! In fact, the
opposite is true! Overwhelmingly, the evidence supports the fact that
children do significantly better on all aspects if brought up in a
stable two- (biological) parent (married) household. When parents
separate, the evidence is overwhelming that children do better if
there is on-going substantial involvement by the (biological) father.
This is determined in studies by comparing the ‘results’ between
children in stable two parent families and those brought up by a
single mother. The difference between these two household structures
is obvious (only to me, it seems!) – the father! Children brought up
in a single mother household are significantly more likely to (see
www.civitas.org.uk – The Fatherless Family)
- become criminals,
- play truant from school,
- leave school with lower qualifications,
- become pregnant as teenagers,
- become alcoholics,
- become addicted to drugs,
- commit suicide,
- have mental health problems
- become homeless,
- be abused and become abusers
In summary, all the negatives in society are massively increased
without the biological father present. It can therefore only be for
reasons related to ‘feminist propaganda’ (and anti-male hysteria) that
fathers are denied the chance to be equally responsible for their
children (unless the mother consents) after separation, because there
are no (or negligible?) studies to support this argument. Recent
coverage of (out-going?) Labour Minister John Hutton’s speech stating
that the best was to bring up children was with married parents (and
hence the worst way with just a single mother?) was greeted
hysterically by the feminist news media.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5349000.stm
He later ‘made up for it’ by announcing CSA mark 2 with increased
powers to pursue ‘absent’ fathers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme…am/6166393.stm
The opposition Conservative Party set up a ‘task force’ to look at
‘Social Exclusion’ with former leader Iain Duncan-Smith (IDS) as
chairman. They produced a 110-page report entitled ‘Breakdown Britain’
on 11th December 2006.
http://povertydebate.typepad.com/hom…n_brita_1.html
This came to the conclusion that the causes of problems in society
were related to five inter-connected factors – family breakdown,
indebtedness, addictions, educational failure and worklessness. The
report identifies ‘dadlessness’ as one of the major factors in all of
these, but fails to identify the causes of this and the responsibility
of the feminist Government policies in persecuting and discriminating
against fathers in causing this problem. Clearly, IDS is playing to a
pro-female media and trying not to annoy them by pointing out that
feminism is the main cause of disaster in this country. It will be
interesting to see the policies that are proposed to reverse
‘Breakdown Britain’, when these are announced in June 2007.
4) CAFCASS
The Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service are largely
tasked with writing reports on children. In disputed cases, they will
be invited to visit the children and get to know them (in 4-5 visits
maximum!) Normally these take place at the mothers house. Normally
they do not record the conversation or make verbatim notes at the
time. They write them up afterwards.
Originally this work was carried out by the Probation Service – who
deal with inteviewing conicted criminals before sentencing – normally
men. They received less training than the average traffic warden. They
have no guidelines or complaints procedure until recently. Not
surprisingly their reports were overwhelmingly prejudiced and
anti-male. Sometimes they used the report twice with different
children. Sometimes they even forgot to change the name!
The consensus being that if the report concluded that the mother
should win, then the Judge concurred. if the report concluded the
father should win, the Judge would over-rule it!
The reports often took moths to prepare – delay favouring the mother
who had blocked contact.
CAFCASS offices have been routinely ‘attacked’ by Fathers 4 Justice as
being the key way that fathers are denied reasonable contact with
their children. CAFCASS simply do not understand the concept of shared
parenting.
There are proposals for change. They are to be invited to mediate
rather than write reports.
The Conservatives have proposed changes – see this article by shadow
spokesman for the family, Theresa May
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do…356&speeches=1
5) Separation and the ‘de facto’ argument
I shall consider the instiutional anti-male discrimination in
divorce/separation in another article. For the moment on the specific
topic of children suffice it to say this -
When a relationship ends, normally the father is encouraged to leave
the family home ‘temporarily’ to ‘reduce the stress’. This is
horrendously bad advice. Since family cases often take months to
resolve. This ‘temporary’ exclusion becomes permanent. The Courts will
then argue that the current situation is ‘working’ and should not be
varied. Thus the status quo argument is used counter-productively.
6) Enforcement of Court Orders
What is the point of a law if it is not enforced? Britain is a country
with high levels of litter. We have litter laws that are almost never
enforced. Thus people know that dropping litter will almost never
result in a punishment, so they do not worry about doing so. As a
result, the streets are filthy and it is expensive to hand-pick
litter.
Whilst I do not believe that punishment is the best way to ensure
compliance with the law, if there is no punishment then why should
people bother? This is most obvious in children cases. In the
‘typical’ case, a mother will get a Residence Order, a father will get
a Contact Order (CO).
So what happens if the mother refuses to bring the children to the
handover place, or is ‘out’ when the father calls to collect the
children? NOTHING.
All the father can do is go back to the Court on the Monday morning
and ask for a new hearing. This will take typically six-eight weeks.
The Judge may ask the mother why she broke the Order. She will then
produce one of the following typical reasons -
Children did not want to go
Children ill
Children invited to a party/school event/ something else
Father abused the children/mother/mother’s new partner/etc ’some time
in the past’
Children upset after the visit
The Judge will then probably spend time attacking the father and
making the mother’s breach appear to be the father’s fault.
I attended one hearing where I raised the subject of ‘punishing’ the
mother for the breach, and the Judge ‘flinched’. they are not taught
to punish mothers and just cannot do it. As far as we are aware, only
two women have been sent to prison for persistent breaches of a CO,
NB see attachment for differential sentences by gender for offences
against a child.
This was an appeal by one of the mothers against a 42 day sentence -
In the Matter of K (Children) 2002 WL 31452170
(Judgment attached)
Another had her sentence reduced to one week -
Z v Z (Refusal of Contact: Committal) 1995 WL 1081587
But when a father was TEN MINUTES late on returning the child, he
received a seven day prison sentence.(see attachment for detail of
Court judgment for the appeal)In the Matter of M (Children) 2004 WL
1929057
In fact, cases of ‘implacable hostility’ by the mother usually result
in a reduction of contact for the father, to a level that the mother
can cope with.
Unlike for lesbians! In a complete contrast to the situation for
fathers, a Court ruled on a residence battle between two lesbians.
When the biological mother became implacably hostile to contact, the
non-biological mother appealed to the Court of Appeal who ordered
shared residency taking away the sole residence of the biological
mother! The biological mother appealed to the House of Lords who
overturned the judgment and said that only in exceptional
circumstances should children be removed from their biological
parents. It is a shame that lesbians have more rights than fathers! Re
G (Children) [2006] UKHL 43.
http://www.journalonline.co.uk/article/1003497.aspx
It is obvious that jailing any aprent should be a last resort.
the new Children Act 2006 poroposes some additional measures -
tagging, curfews etc. None of which will be used against the mother,
of course.
In fact the simplest is the best idea – compensatory contact. If the
mother blocks contact for one weekend, the father should automatically
get the next TWO weekends in replacement contact. This process would
eventually lead to a reversal of residency – the only way to stop the
nonsense.
7) United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm
This has not been formally ratified by the UK so does not actually
form part of UK law. However, by signing it the UK has expressed an
intention to avoid opposing the convention – specifically of interest
is the following articles -
Article 7
1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and
shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a
nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared
for by his or her parents.
2. States Parties shall ensure the implementation of these
rights in accordance with their national law and their obligations
under the relevant international instruments in this field, in
particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.
Article 8
1. States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to
preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family
relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference.
2. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the
elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide
appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing
speedily his or her identity.
Article 9
1. States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be
separated from his or her parents against their will, except when
competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in
accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is
necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may
be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or
neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are
living separately and a decision must be made as to the child’s place
of residence.
2. In any proceedings pursuant to paragraph 1 of the present
article, all interested parties shall be given an opportunity to
participate in the proceedings and make their views known.
3. States Parties shall respect the right of the child who is
separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and
direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is
contrary to the child’s best interests. 4. Where such separation
results from any action initiated by a State Party, such as the
detention, imprisonment, exile, deportation or death (including death
arising from any cause while the person is in the custody of the
State) of one or both parents or of the child, that State Party shall,
upon request, provide the parents, the child or, if appropriate,
another member of the family with the essential information concerning
the whereabouts of the absent member(s) of the family unless the
provision of the information would be detrimental to the well-being of
the child. States Parties shall further ensure that the submission of
such a request shall of itself entail no adverse consequences for the
person(s) concerned.
As it is obvious from the above, the UK is blatantly breaching these Articles.
Legal Aid
In attempting to take cases to Court, one of the main problems is
cost. Solicitors routinely charge £150-200 per hour and are
specifically prohibited from offering fixed fee or conditional fee
arrangements in familay law cases. A typical contact dispute may run
£20-30,000. Thus there is a huge incentive to deliberately extend or
prolong cases as has been mentioned above.
However, for parents with little or no income there is Legal Aid. This
povides a solicitor effectively for free. The assessment process looks
at the parents income
http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/civi…calculator.asp
and expenditure. It allows £198 per child on top of the basic £635 per
month. I checked with the Legal Services Commission (LSC) and asked
the question – what happens if there is a dispute over Residence?
Normally disputed assets are not included in the Legal Aid
calculation. However, the LSC confirmed that the parent receiving
Child Benefit would receive the £198 allowance per child, the other
parent nothing. Thus the mother can get Legal Aid whilst earning a
significant amount more than the father! Further anti-male
discrimination!
9) Abortion
I like raising controversial subjects on this forum, as I am not
allowed to do so anywhere else! This one could be the most
controversial yet.
In the UK a baby has no rights of its own untuil it is born. There was
a case concerning a pregnant woman who was attacked. As a result the
baby was born prematurely and died after just a few weeks. The
attacker was charged with assaulting the woman not the child. This
case defined the moment when a baby became a human being for legal
purposes – completely out of the mother’s body although it could still
be attached by the umbilical cord.
This case is crucial because of the status of the foetus – it is
therefore considered to be part of the mother’s body. I believe that
the baby should have rights from the moment of conception. Some people
might argue from the legal time limit for abortions 24 weeks,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6099982.stm
some might argue that the legal time limit should be reduced as babies
have survived with the adbvances in modern technology. Because of the
case above, when abortion occurs, the baby must be killed in the womb.
I won’t go into further details as they are deeply distressing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilation_and_evacuation
For the purpose of discrimination issues, the treatment of a foetus as
part of the mother is crucial for determining who has the right to
decide on whether to have an abortion. From a LEGAL perspective (i
emphasise this as it is entirely an immoral position), the mother is
simply removing an unwanted part of her body, like having a lump
removed from her breast. Thus she has absolutely power over whether or
not to do this. The father need not be consulted nor give his
approval. Thus the mother has absolute power over wther the baby is
born, regardless of the father’s views. If the mother wants an
abortion and the father does not, there is absolutely NOTHING he can
do about ensuring that the baby is born. This is anti-male
discrimination of the worst possible kind!
A father did take this case to ECHR and lost of course 408 Paton v.
United Kingdom
Application No. 8416/78 (1981) 3 E H R R 408 (Judgment attached)
The differential sentences continue even after birth – compare this
murder of her new born baby by a mother – PROBATION
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4903002.stm
with what happened when the man did it – MANSLAUGHTER
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e…ts/4678898.stm
See attachment for differential sentences by gender for child cruelty (EXCEL)
10) Public Law saved for another article!
Tags: children, courts, discrimination, father, human rights, mother, UK, unfairness
