With the
return of abducted boy Jason Headley, New Zealanders can reflect on how well
the Government serves citizens and especially their children, through the
Family Court.
Many
citizens don't worry about the quality of Family Court services, as they hope
that they will never have to use it themselves.
Actually, we are not in total control of this situation.
For my
children, I do want a wise, good quality and timely service to be available, as
the norm, whether my children need it or not. I want judges that have relevant
training, that is useful for constructively and cost effectively solving family
disputes.
The public
can only judge, if they have access to the truth and the whole truth and
nothing but the truth about what is happening, IN THEIR NAME.
The public
can only judge, if they are willing to listen.
At the
least, our society must learn, in a timely fashion, from it's mistakes and
improve practices. Better still, we
should get legislation right in the first place. This takes open discussion of all of the
issues, in Parliamentary Subcommittees, before the legislation is passed into
law. When a strong party leader rushes legislation
and the Subcommittees just go through the motions and rubber stamp it, then
there is a large risk that the legislation will be of poor quality and fail to
perform well in the real world. The
non-lawyers in Parliament must stop standing back and play a more active role
in developing legislation.
I cannot
see that the present lawyers, trained only in adversarial procedure, can ever
provide the conciliatory approach promised by Judge Trapski at the opening of
the Family Court in 1980. Judge Boshier
made the same promise in 2006, without referring to Judge Trapski's promise
made in 1980. In the intervening 25
years, many tens thousands of families have been "processed", without
this conciliatory approach coming into practice. How long should we wait? A whole generation of time has drifted by,
while families are unnecessarily being damaged.
Why would
these lawyers ever offer conciliatory negotiation, when there is a conflict of
interest. Their incomes will obviously
be better served by promoting dispute and lack of trust, than by
constructively, speedily and cost effectively solving disputes. We must face
the conflict of interest and manage it.
Relying on the present system lacking supervision of judges is clearly
unworkable. I tell my children to be
very wary of people who say "trust me". Honest workers appreciate good supervision.
Undeclared unmanaged conflicts of interest bleed society and damage vulnerable
people.
These
lawyer's skills are no more relevant to solving family disputes, than they are
to fixing leaky homes. Lawyers seem to
offer more for creating problems, than for solving them cost effectively.
The
solution for the Family Court lies in employing people with a relevant
knowledge of family finances, negotiation, child raising and integrity. Such people are readily available in our
community, but not from legal workers.
We must move on from listening to promises from the legal
"profession" and enact constructive changes without further
unnecessary delays.
Child
abduction is a serious problem in our community.
There are
about 60 Hague applications made each year for children abducted into NZ and a
similar number for children abducted out of NZ.
These represent just those abductions where the remaining parent could
locate the child and the child was taken to a Hague signatory country. Thus international abductions presently
probably run at about 200 children per year into NZ and the same number
removed.
Of these,
about 85% are mother abductors and 15% father abductors. This latter detail is hidden from the NZ
public, by publicity being given mainly to father abductor cases. Family Court judges do not correct the public
mis-impression that most abductors are fathers.
Family
Court judges frequently actively support mother abductors on the basis that
they might have been subjected to violence.
Family Court judges lack the skills to assess family violence at a
single sitting (no human on Earth could reliably achieve this!). This illegal support for mother abductors is
why the abduction problem continues to grow at 15% per year. This covert support only occurs because it
can be hidden from the wisdom of the public.
The public
knows that good parenting is based on honesty, working together and
accountability, not on lying, secrecy and running away from
accountability. Abductors are not good
parents, particularly as sole parents and judges are not serving these children
by supporting abductors.
Abduction
within NZ and withholding, is frequently used to gain the advantage for
mothers, in day to day care applications, as they know the Family Court judges
will reward them for carrying out their abduction. The public must stop the Family Court from
rewarding mothers for doing these abductions.
Child removal should only be carried out by honestly negotiated
agreement, anything else is abduction. Agreements
should be followed through, so that people can have reasonable trust and faith
in court orders. This leads to good parenting.
Family
damage resulting from these abductions leads to suicides of parents (mainly
fathers) and of the children (boys and girls) too. Many people not quite so affected lead
damaged lives, sometimes through no direct fault of their own. Lets do all we can to prevent these
abductions and discourage them too.
Lets stop
talking and carry out constructive changes to the Family Court, so that it can
work and serve.
In the
Jason Headley case, the Family Court has turned around after six years, the
whole life of this child and criticised the mother and her family.
How could
these judges have been so slow?
Have they
only turned around now, because the facts could no longer be hidden?
The answers
can only show that the wrong people have been following the wrong
approach. Families are about more than
just money. I am sure that Kay Skelton
could have been a good mother from six years ago, if she had been given the
constructive signals from the Family Court judges.
The
inability of the Family Court judges to accept responsibility for their role
shows clearly that they lack the skills and motivation to be ever able to perform
their tasks effectively. (They could
still get jobs as a spin doctors, in an area where profit is the main issue.)
I have been
through the Family Court as a result of the abduction of my children (twice)
and I do want a Family Court that works for everyone. There is nothing wrong with sharing children
and parents. Actually, there is much to
be gained.
