Public scrutiny in family courts

May 2, 2009

If Canadians could cram en masse into the bitter courtrooms where child-custody disputes play out, there might be fewer nasty divorces. Since they can't, they should be allowed to read about them, which is why an Ontario judge was right to reject a request from the provincial Office of the Children's Lawyer for a gag order on the lawyers and family members in a notorious case of "parental alienation syndrome." A cautionary tale that no one can hear is not much good to anyone.

Would a gag order have benefited the children involved? Only if one believes that family law always protects children, that all the players have only the children's interests at heart and would arrange for the best possible resolution, without any public scrutiny. Such paternalism should have died out a long time ago. The OCL's request shows why World Press Freedom Day tomorrow remains important: Even in Canada in 2009, the openness of the courts is not guaranteed. Last month, a Quebec judge suggested that journalists could publish only information that people were authorized to give them.

Parental alienation syndrome is a label given to the brainwashing of children by their divorced spouses. No doubt such brainwashing happens, and is extremely harmful; but increasingly the courts have been ordering the Draconian solution of forced "deprogramming" at a clinic in the United States. This use of coercion, to the point of virtually kidnapping children, needs more public debate, not less.

Everything about the case before Ontario Court Judge Steven Clark this week cries out for debate. Why does the legal system tolerate a 10-year slugfest between parents? What can be done to protect children when parents use the courts as a boxing ring? What evidence made a previous judge in the case think that forcing a 12- and 14-year-old to submit to deprogramming would help, rather than traumatize them?

What the courts couldn't fix, the siblings' 19-year-old brother appeared, heroically, to have managed. He brokered a deal among the warring parents in which the children would be reunited with the mother they had been alienated from, without the younger boys being forced to take deprogramming. A local therapist would be retained. "We emancipated ourselves from these professionals that have been breathing down our necks the whole time," the 19-year-old said outside court. Those words are well worth hearing.

And who could object to the deal? The Office of the Children's Lawyer, which insisted on the deprogramming while asking for the gag order.

Judge Clark, to his credit, accepted the arrangement worked out by the young man, while rejecting the publication ban. "The principle of openness is deeply entrenched in our system."

While people in democracies may associate World Press Freedom Day with the need to expand free speech in places such as China and Zimbabwe, there is no shortage of cases in Canada where limits are requested - or imposed - on free speech. Every time a judge gives in to a requested publication ban, more requests quickly follow.

All Canadians have an interest in making sure that the children of high-conflict divorce are protected, and that those charged with protecting them, including the courts and the Office of the Children's Lawyer, do good, and not harm. That is why the courts are open. The freedom of the press belongs not only to the media, but to all Canadians.

 

 

Source

Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre.

Firstly, notice the Globe did not state the author's name? If its world press day, why not give the author some credit? Why censor that?

This article is long overdue, it needs to be read by every judge and lawyer in Ontario Family Court, not just Ontario either, its valid anywhere in any court including CAS and child protection who are perhaps the greatest abusers of taking advantage of their "secret court" status.

Good Judges do not restrict access to their courts, they have nothing to hide, in fact they encourage it. NO ONE makes complaints about those judges.

The judges who attract the most complaints, bear in mind, most complaints are NEVER publicized or reach the Judicial council whose mandate is so useless it begs the question as to why it exists other than to  "get rid of complaints" and to "protect the judiciary".

The very worst abusers in Family court are very well known, the "worst judge ever", "the worst of the worst"

Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa Home of the Corrupt Family Court Judges, Canada) wrote: E Q U A L P A R E N T I N G - Canada needs a Legal Presumption of Equal Parenting upon separation.

Currently, political parties have pandered and competed for the 'Feminist Vote', while ignoring that for every man destroyed there are also a number of females who suffer, paternal mothers, aunts and sisters.

The Liberals also need to take careful note of the tidal wave of father's who are being destroyed by feminist dominated judges who flagrantly abuse their discretion in making highly illegal orders that are not just an insult to justice but are slowly and steadily destroying the Rule of Law in Canada and bringing the administration of Justice into ILL-REPUTE.

The liberals should take note that one of the worst most Flagrant Abusers of Judicial Power, is none other than their own blue ribbon Liberal supporter, the Corrupt, the Dis-Honourable Denis Power.

This judge has no respect for orders of other judges and simply does indirectly what he cannot do directly, thats a criminal offense of 'Obstruction of Justice'.

Instead of the Liberals worrying about Feminist myths of domestic violence, they should deal the real dangers to society , judges, corrupt judges who commit crimes against children, that are worse than childhood sexual abuse, they issue draconian rulings on no evidence without any grounds to terminate children's relationships with their parents and make those decisions irreversable and which cannot be varied.

Another Corrupt Judge is the Regional Senior Justice of Ottawa Superior Court, the Dis-Honourable Justice Hackland who refused to allow Peter Roscoe to file responding documents to a FRO default hearing.

Peter Roscoe is presently incarcerated in the Ottawa Carleton detention centre, needlessly, they are seizing and selling his house while incarcerating him to prevent him from raising any objections to that improper seizure caused by Justice 'Chuk' HACKland.

www.OttawaMensCentre.com

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Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa Home of the Corrupt Judge Allan Sheffield, Canada) wrote: We Need an End to Male Gender Apartheid, Legal Presumption of Equal Parenting, that is, we need an end to the Canadian Practice of Torturing Fathers in Family Court.

Our new Liberal leader is just not a suitable person for the office of prime minister. He is at heart, a polarized brown nosed politician who rides what ever horse appears to be the fastest in the next few laps.

He advocating the torture of detainees for George Bush and that speaks volumes as to why he is not suitable to be prime minister.

It makes you wonder, how the liberals can support Ignatieff when he was so publicly advocating torture.

If he has that appalling lack of human rights, just how can he represent Canada?

Then there is his almost entire life living in other countries, that would not exclude him by itself but add that to his unbridled support for George Bush and it raises serious questions that will probably do more to help the conservatives.

Then there is the "Yes We Can", , yes, We Can Torture and get away with it.

No you can expect Ignatieff to sit down and have a beer with two famous torturers in Ottawa, true blue Liberals, Justice Denis Power and Allan Sheffield both of whom think nothing of ending children's relationships with their fathers and, ending a father's right to litigate the best interests of their child and, making "deportation orders" for Canadian Citizens under the threat of a life time of incarceration for simply asking for access to their children.

www.OttawaMensCentre.com

www.OttawaMensCentre.com