Contents
PART I: INTRODUCTION
PART II: LEGISLATIVE & POLICY ISSUES
PART III: JUDICIAL AND LEGAL PROFESSIONAL ISSUES
PART IV: ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
PART I: INTRODUCTION
Overview
Any proposal on reforming the Family Court must state what the problem
or problems is/are and suggest a solution or a set of solutions -- either
in terms of a process for arriving at a solution or the actual solutions
themselves. This suggested process is a Royal Commission or a Commission
of Inquiry, so that it has the power to subpoena witnesses and thereby
carry out its task in a thorough manner.
In addition to suggesting the process, this proposal will look at some
possible substantive solutions, as a guide as to what types of solutions
might be feasible.
This proposal goes back to first principles, examines the reasons why
we have the kind of family law that we have, and looks at possible alternatives.
As background reading, the book Sex,
Lies & Feminism, which is available for reading online at http://equality.netfirms.com/contents.html,
is recommended.
The Problems
For most people in the Fathers' Movement, the initial problem manifested
itself in terms of their own divorce and/or separation process. These
people have decided, based on their own experience, that there is a
problem, and have devoted time, energy and money to analysing the problem,
proposing solutions, and attempting to get the proposed solutions implemented.
Another group within the same movement is composed of relatives (such
as second wives) and friends of the people who feel they have been unjustly
treated by the family law system.
There is also a third group, which is the Men's Rights Movement, which
encompases a wider range of issues than the Fathers' Movement does,
and supports the Fathers' Movement from a broader prespective. Nevertheless,
there is a broad area of overlap between the Men's Movement and the
Fathers' Movement, because the latter has tended to broaden the range
of issues that it has come to see as relevant to the family law system.
The two main issues that the Fathers' Movement is concerned with are
the care of children and contact with children after separation or divorce.
Other issues, such as relationship property and child support are also
important. The issues of acusations of domestic violence or sexual abuse
are of course important to fathers intrinsically, but loom large principally
in respect of the way that they impact on the two main issues.
According to the New Zealand Herald of Wednesday September 6 2006,
65% of day-to-day care orders are awarded to mothers, 11% to fathers,
about 12% to another party, and 12% to a shared-care arrangement. Only
5.4% of orders are made by judges at a defended hearing, and, of these,
18.4% award custody to fathers.
Some people, including Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier,
claim that the 5.4% figure shows that most people are happy to have
such matters settled amicably, and claim further that the 11% figure
shows that most fathers are happy to let the mother have day-to-day
care, and also claim that it is significant that the courts award a
greater percentage (18.4%) of care orders to fathers than couples select
for themselves (11%).
In fact, the above amounts to a serious misinterpretation of the figures,
at best. As lawyers and fathers are well aware that only 18.4% of fathers
(although they might not know the precise figure) are awarded care orders
in contested hearings, this provides an obvious disincentive to fathers
from attempting to secure care in the face of a mother's opposition.
Depending on the facts of the case, lawyers would be bound to advise
fathers in most cases that they would lose if they insisted on a defended
hearing. So the 5.4% and 11% figures are low because fathers are in
a weak bargaining position -- being in the shadow of a court which is
likely to rule against them if they test the issue in court.
At custbibl.html#Time there is a list
of studies that show that men want more time with their kids, but know
they won’t get it.
In fact, while the first draft of this proposal was being drafted,
the writer received the following email, which will serve as an example:
"I am after some information in regards to fathers gaining custody
of their children. A young friend of mine has recently split up with
his partner and has had his two baby daughters taken from him by her
family, We fear for there safety but seem to be meeting closed doors
where ever we go for help. He lives in a small rural town in New Zealand
and cant find a lawyer willing to give there all to get the children
back. He has been told repeatedly that he will more then likely loose
the custody battle and has been advised to settle out of court. This
is unacceptable, could you please send along some ideas of where to
turn? as we are at our wits end."
It is not necessarily easy to demonstrate that there is a problem,
because the hard data often consists of actual cases (such as that mentioned
in the above email), and because complaints by fathers might be (and
often are) written off as one-sided expressions of disappointment by
the losing party.
Parents have rights too. Recent legislation such as the Guardianship
Act 1968 and the Care of Children Act 2004 pays lip-service to the best
interests of the child, but there is little evidence that there is any
consensus as to what this would mean in any concrete situation. There
seems to be a strong, irrational feeling that parents and Parliament
should be focussed on children's best interests, but it does not seem
to engage anyone's actual intellect, because most people seem actually
to have other agendas. Parents' rights should be offically acknowledged,
and the best interests of the child should only be mentioned in legislation
if that is the result of serious thinking about what would actually
be in children's best interests.
There is a strong ideological subtext at the fringes of the debate.
Although piecemeal changes have been made to family law and to the law
relating to sexual orientation, there are obviously many who see it
as a desirable endpoint that more or less any group of people who live
together could and should be viewed as a "family", so as to
eliminate discrimination in this area. At the other extreme, there are
those who say that no bonds can be as strong as genetic ties, and that
the traditional, complete, heterosexual basis of the family unit is
what is best for children -- preferably involving marriage and religion.
The Law and Order Committee might like to ask itself the following
two questions: Are the non-genetic ties between any group of people
as strong as those between genetic family members, and are the non-genetic
ties strong enough to enable the children in partly or wholly non-genetic
"families" to grow into happy, balanced, productive, and law-abiding
citizens ?
It is arguable that child abuse is linked to the breakdown in the two-parent
family, which is itself linked to the introduction of no-fault divorce.
I suggest that most child abuse is perpetrated by step-parents and single
parents, and that this hypothesis should be investigated scientifically
in the New Zealand context. Two parents together can manage children
much better than one parent alone can, and the stepparent-stepchild
bond can seldom be as strong as the bond between blood relatives, which
opens the door to sexual or violent behaviour of all sorts that is more
typical of strangers than of relatives.
At custbibl.html#Risks there is a
list of studies that show the risks that children in mother-custody
situations run from Mummy's new boyfriend.
At custbibl.html#Premature there
is a list of studies that show that that girls without their natural
(biological) fathers reach puberty 9 months earlier than girls who live
with their natural fathers and are several times more likely to become
pregnant as teenagers, even after controlling for wealth and race..
The Inquiry should fund research into this issue, such as a survey
of all the available research on this issue.
The Solutions
In broad terms, solutions can either centre on improving the way that
legislation similar to the Guardian Act 1968 or the Care of Children
Act 2004 works or propose a radical revision of the fundamental principles
of current family law -- involving perhaps a return to an earlier model.
In other words, abandoning the no-fault model of the Family Proceedings
Act 1980 must be an option that is put on the table.
Solutions would not only involve drafting new laws, but would also
involve changing the anti-male culture of New Zealand in general, and
of the legal fraternity in particular. This would involve repealing
the Broadcasting Act and replacing it with a Mass Media Depoliticisation
Act which had actual teeth, which was not subject to political appointments
to the regulatory body, and which was capable of being used to prevent
journalists from using their power to impose their agendas on the largely
unsuspecting public and electorate. After all, there is little use in
forcing the media to be balanced as between political parties, as such,
when all the while the media are one-sidedly promoting policies which
are much more in tune with one part of the political spectrum than with
the other.
One proposal is that there should be a legislative presumption of shared
day-to-day care. This would certainly be in the parents' interests (especially
in the interests of fathers). Prima facie, at least, it would also seem
to be in the interests of the child to have equal contact with both
parents. The counter-argument that is often heard is that, if the parents
are in conflict, attempting to enforce shared day-to-day care will be
against the best interests of the child, since they will be experiencing
this conflict between the parents.
At custbibl.html#conflict there
is a list of studies that show that joint residence arrangements show
reduced conflict because joint residence appears to more fully satisfy
the needs of both parents It provides a combination of time off for
one parent and enhanced involvement in child rearing for the other.
At custbibl.html#Shared there is
a list of 126 citations to published research showing that shared residence
is better for children than any other kind of post-divorce residence.
At custbibl.html#Joint there is a
list of studies which show that shared custody is what children want.
At custbibl.html#Meaningful
there is a list of studies that show that meaningful relationships need
shared residency.
At custbibl.html#Evidence there
are two studies listed that state that there is no evidence that sole
parenting is best for children..
At custbibl.html#Attachment
there is a list of 24 studies that discredit Attachment Theory. Attachment
theory is the basis of many family court rulings for sole custody. The
theory proposes that children need a secure emotional attachment to
caregivers for healthy emotional development. However today attachment
theory recognises that a child can form attachments to several caregivers,
typically the father and the mother.
Today, attachment theory DOES NOT suggest that there is only one single
attachment figure. Rather, babies can form multiple attachments, particularly
with the mother and the father. Although many professionals and the
family court use attachment theory to justify their belief in the importance
of a ‘primary’ caregiver.
Attachment theory itself is criticised because the first one of its
two core planks of the theory have not been reproduced and better explanations
exist. Attachment theory says firstly that the style of care-giving
the child receives determines the child’s response in the ‘strange
situation’ experiment. And secondly that the ‘strange situation’
measurement of a child then goes on to predict many outcomes for the
child later in life, including emotional adjustment, success at school,
and many other measures of well-being. This second plank has been widely
confirmed.
The first plank however is based on a single experiment of 26 children,
the Baltimore project in 1963. This has not been reproduced. A more
convincing explanation for interpreting the ‘strange situation’
is that it is simply a form of personality test and not related to care-giving
style or attachment to the mother at all. Children are born with different
temperaments and this is the main factor in their response to the attachment
theory measurement of the strange situation.
The Inquiry should review the research evidence about the benefits
of shared care, as opposed to the drawbacks of the increased conflict
(if any) between the parents, if they have shared care, rather than
one having care and the other merely having access.
Another argument for shared day-to-day care is that it reduces the
incidence of divorce and separation, because most such splits are initiated
by women, and so reducing the likelihood that they will get a "win",
by getting sole custody, also reduces their motivation to initiate the
split.
At custbibl.html#Marriages there
is a list of studies that show that shared parenting saves marriages..
We could actually "legislate against child-abuse", by making
divorce and separation harder to get, and by creating tax incentives
and other measures to make the housewife/househusband the norm that
they once were. The emphasis on getting parents out of the home and
into the workplace is against the best interests of the child -- and
of Society itself. There needs to be less hypocritical legislative talk
about the "best interests of the child" and more legislative
action to secure those interests. This might involve the Families Commission
having automatic monitoring rights over parliamentary Bills, in order
to examine and report to Parliament on the effects of such Bills on
the family.
PART II: LEGISLATIVE & POLICY ISSUES
No-fault divorce
The Family Proceedings Act 1980 repealed the Matrimonial Proceedings
Act 1963 and the Domestic Proceedings Act 1968, together with their
various amending acts, and introduced no-fault separation, at the instigation
of one party to a relationship, which could be followed by no-fault
divorce.
The Inquiry that is being called for should investigate the reasons
for the introduction of no-fault divorce/separation -- now that we know
how Society has changed in the intervening period. A parallel task that
would be equally useful -- indeed, vital -- would be to investigate
what social changes can be statistically linked to this change in the
law.
Some people think that there is a clear link. Anyone who has ever been
a teacher will have noticed that children of separated parents are unhappier
and more disruptive than the children of (natural) parents who are (still)
together.Daniel Amneus, in his book The Garbage Generation (christianparty.net/garbgen.wri),
states:
'"Women," wrote Ramsey Clark in l970, in his celebrated book
Crime in America, "are not a threat to the public." But he
also wrote, in discussing the male juvenile criminals who are a threat
to the public, that "three-fourths came from broken homes."
That means mostly female-headed homes. That means that while the single
mothers of these criminals do not themselves commit crimes and go to
prison, the socialization they give their children has an extraordinarily
high correlation with the male crime of the next generation. This socialization,
in fact, is the "root cause of crime" which Clark wrote his
book to explore.'
See the Annex to Chapter I of the above book for the evidence which
Amneus adduces in support of his thesis that intact families are best
for children and for society.
South Auckland, populated by ethnic groups who seem destined to become
the majority of the population in the not-too-distant future, is becoming
a by-word for Los Angeles-style gang warfare, as well as for all the
other standard social ills that New Zealand used to be relatively free
of. These ethnic groups are clearly not achieving well in socio-economic
terms, so their welfare has now become an issue for the whole population
-- especially for the baby-boomers, many of whom are going to need their
taxes to live on when they retire! Where are these taxes going to come
from, if New Zealand slides into Third-World status as the result of
the non-achievement of these groups?
A lot of crime must surely arise from the culture of hopelessness that
seems to exist in places like South Auckland, and among some ethnic
groups more than others.
It is known that Maoris have a very high rate of fatherless children
(i.e. children with absent fathers), and the link between fatherlessness
and crime should be explored for Maoris and all other groups in Society.
As a matter of urgency.
As far as the reasons for the introduction of No-Fault Separation/Divorce
are concerned, the welfare and best interests of the child seems to
have been far from the minds of the proponents of that change, so the
later promotion of the welfare and best interests of the child to being
the overriding principle of legislation governing the care of children
and contact with children seems to have been a sticking-plaster applied
in response to criticisms of the No-Fault regime as being detrimental
to children's interests.
One participant (Maggie Gallagher) in the website debate End no-Fault
Divorce? (http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9708/gallagher.html)
states that -- in America, at least -- no-fault divorce was marketed
as having two benefits:
- reducing conflict, because no blame would have to be assigned;
- enhancing respect for the law, since spouses would not have to make
false accusations in order to secure a divorce.
With hindsight, we can now see that the amount of conflict has not
necessarily been reduced, but it has been transferred to issues relating
to children and property. And respect for the law has possibly never
been so low -- both because of the biased way that Family Law is seen
to operate and because of the increase in crime that has arguably occurred
as a result of the No-Fault regime.
Of course, there is an underlying assumption here that separations
and divorces have increased in New Zealand, and that this has been a
reult of the no-fault regime. This is something that would have to be
investigated by the Inquiry which is being requested.
It is unrealistic to expect judges or lawyers for the child to have
the wisdom and predictive ability to know what arrangement will, over
all, be in the best interests of the child, in most cases. It is impossible
for a court to know enough about the families, or about the future,
to make a reasonable decision based on this principle. We are expecting
judges to behave like weather forecasters or economists, and we all
know how often these two professions get it wrong !
See also Wendy McElroy's essay called:"Marriage and the Family:An
Ideological Battleground" at http://www.zetetics.com/sexcor/marr.html.
No-Fault Divorce, Adultery, Child-Support and Choice for Men
Since there have been only numerically insignificant pro-male pressure-groups,
in comparison with pro-female pressure-groups, legislation has routinely
been passed without taking the male perspective into account. No-fault
divorce has brought with it a diminution of the stigma attached to adultery
-- to the extent that the Wellington City Council has even advertised
Wellington on television as a place to come and have adulterous affairs
in !
Adultery impacts more severely on men than on women, because women
(barring a mix-up in hospital) can always be sure that the child they
think is theirs actually is theirs. By contrast, the proverb "It's
a wise man who knows his own father" points to the fact that men
can only be really sure that they are bringing up their own child if
DNA tests are carried out.
The Choice for Men movement aims to give men the same rights over their
reproduction that women have. A woman at present can unilaterally decide
to abort her partner's child, which is discriminatory. Likewise, the
separation and divorce processes, if they involve children, should give
both parties the right unilaterally to demand paternity tests, so that
everyone knows who is whose child, and so that the father does not have
to pay child-support for a child who is not his.
No-fault divorce should be abolished so that adultery can once more
become stigmatised, which will go some way towards protecting men's
right to know whether they have so far succeeded in passing on their
genes, which is important to most men, in all probability.
Media bias -- particularly in relation to Domestic Violence
A Bill should be introduced to outlaw implicit, domestic violence-related,
anti-male hate-speech in the media -- such as references to "violence
against women", to the exclusion of violence against men. The Bill
should force the media to hold regular debates between Masculists and
Feminists about issues such as Domestic Violence, because television,
in particular, just seem to disseminate Feminist myths on the subject.
This creates a hysterical and totalitarian atmosphere which dominates
the public discussion of the serious issue of domestic violence.
There are efforts underway to use the Official Information Act to force
the Ministry of Social Development either to admit that the Power and
Control (Duluth) model of domestic violence is a sexist, discriminatory
(anti-male) and unscientific myth or to explain what evidence they think
there is for it. The Ministry funds groups which not only act on the
basis of that myth, but who use the funding to spread irrational belief
in that myth. So far, the Ministry has been avoiding acting on either
of these two alternative courses of action.
Kidnapping, Parental Alienation, the Women's Refuge, Domestic Violence,
and the Welfare of the Child
Under the Guardianship Act 1968, it seemed to be the case that whichever
parent had custody of a child between the time of separation and the
relevant Court hearing had the dice loaded in their favour, because
custody would usually be awarded in such a way as to maintain continuity
of arrangements, on the grounds of the welfare of the child requiring
such continuity. In the Care of Children Act 2004, the notion that continuity
is important to the welfare of the child is explicitly retained in s
5(b).
In the section on Examples of Bias there is an example of a mother
being successful in gaining an award of custody because she already
had de facto custody. The judge ruled that continuity of custody arrangements
would be in the best interests of the child -- despite the fact that
the mother had achieved her status as de facto sole custodial parent
"unilaterally", as the judge put it.
There is another documented case where a father's lawyer, prior to
any separation taking place, advised him to take his child from the
family home and disappear, because that would put him into the more
powerful position. Concerned for the welfare of the child, however,
he did not follow that advice, and he consequently found himself with
an uphill custody battle on his hands.
The Women's Refuges are also organisation that, in effect, kidnap men's
children, because they are a private organisation which take in women
and their children and exclude men, without having to account for their
actions to any public authority.
The Domestic Violence Act 1995 was passed under the influence of man-hating
hysteria and Feminist myths, and its sections relating to ex parte applications,
in particular, should be drastically amended, so as to be consistent
with Natural Justice. The time-lag between the imposition of an ex parte
temporary protection order and any possibility of the respondent's contesting
it at a later hearing also constitutes de facto kidnapping by the parent
who will probably be awarded day-to-day care on the grounds of continuity.
Not only does such unilateral action by one parent (with or without
a Refuge's help or a Court's imposition of an ex parte protection order)
unfairly predetermine the likely outcome of a custody battle -- it also
sets the scene for the alienation of the child's affections by one parent
from the other. This is bad enough in itself, but it also has an influence
on what the child will say when the Court attempts to determine its
wishes in regard to day-to-day care and access. The child's feelings
may in effect have been manipulated by the custodial parent.
Section 209 of the Crimes Act should be amended explicitly to make
Kidnapping include a parent's removal of their child from the day-to-day
care of the other parent without either the consent of that parent or
of a Court. If the child is taken to a Women's Refuge, the latter should
be deemed an accessory after the fact -- or even a party to the offence.
Jurisprudence, legal safeguards and the Family Court
The rules of evidence in jurisdictions other than that of the Family
Court have developed over centuries in the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition,
and they have done so for a purpose -- in order to try to ensure that
justice is done. Likewise, court hearings in jurisdictions other than
that of the Family Court have generally been open to the public and
to the media. In other words, justice has to be done, and it has to
be seen to be done. If certain details have to be suppressed, then they
can be suppressed.
The Family Court, as it now is, is the one great exception to this,
and the question has to be asked: Why is it that the need for justice
to be done and to be seen to be done does not apply to the Family Court
? The overriding objective of any Court is surely to provide justice,
and if it is not actually seen to provide justice, then it will utlimately
undermine the credibility of the entire justice system, as the Editorial
in the August 2006 edition of the New Zealand Law Journal points out.
There is no obvious reason why the rules of evidence in the Family
Court should not be the same as in other civil matters -- i.e. possibly
a little less strict than in criminal matters. (This should not be confused
with the standard of proof, which is on the balance of probabilities.)
For the protection of both the children and the parents, the judge should
have wide powers to suppress identifying details, but the Family Court
should otherwise be open. This would probably have the beneficial side-effect
that fewer cases would come to court -- either because the parties decided
not to separate, or because the matters would be settled outside a formal
court hearing.
Conflict between religion and feminism and sexual revolution
Judge Baragwanath, when he was a Law Commissioner, made derogatory
remarks about men with "old-fashioned" views on sex role issues.
There seem to be a lot of fathers in the Fathers' Movement who are religious
and/or hold views which he would consider old-fashioned. Some forms
of religion provide the strongest organised opposition to Feminism,
and it is possible that what we have, in some court cases, is a culture-clash
between a generally Feminist Family Law profession (including the judges)
and some religious and/or conservative and/or Masculist fathers.
The Court system has no business adopting -- whether officially or
unofficially -- an ideology that has not been imposed by Parliament
-- i.e. democratically. Unfortunately, the Institute of Judicial Studies
sees fit to teach judges the Feminist -- and biased -- concept of "Gender
Equity", so there is no reason to think that this Feminst culture
has not been allowed to take over the Family Court.
Child Support & Custody
The care of children should be linked to child support. This might
involve placing responsibility for child-support enforcement in the
hands of the same institution that administers parental care of children,
so that the injustice is avoided where a liable parent (for child-support
purposes) has little access to their child.
Custodial parents who move away from the non-custodial parent should
be penalised in relation to child support payments, because they are
depriving the liable parent of easy access. The Inquiry should also
investigate ways of ensuring that child support payments are spent on
the child, rather than on the custodial parent's lifestyle.
Best Interests of the Child and Bill of Rights Act 1990 (other parties'
rights)
It is commendable that s 5 of the Care of Children Act 2004 has tightened
up the list of principles deemed relevant to the child's welfare and
best interests.
However, the Lawyer for the Child, the parties and the judge can only
guess at what is in the best interests of the child – no one can
possibly know enough about all the relevant factors in a particular
case (let alone predict the future) in order to give a verdict as to
which is the best arrangement for a child in such cases.
For example, in one access case, in the TV programme that was produced
by the Family Court, the Lawyer for the Child said that the father had
to move closer to the mother if he wanted more access to his child.
Why couldn't it be the mother who had to move closer to the father ?
No reason was given. Possibly so that the children's lives would not
be disrupted. If so, is that criterion also used to prevent a custodial
parent moving away with the children from the non-custodial parent ?
There is a lot of scope for the selective use of the "Welfare of
the Child" principle in a way that benefits the mother and disadvantages
the father. This, indeed, is what appears to happen in the court case
discussed in the section Example of Bias.
It is clear that many people in authority interpret Domestic Violence
situations in such a way that the male is always at fault, as can be
seen from the report of a meeting with the then Family Violence Prevention
Coordinator at Police National Headquarters on the webpage: http://equality.netfirms.com
/4dvlies.html .
What is the research evidence that a change of principal caregiver
(between parents upon separation or divorce) is in itself significantly
disruptive to a child ? This seems to be relevant to s 5(b) of the Care
of Children Act 2004.
What are the characteristics of parenting which are considered to be
best for the child, if they have just one parent -- are they typically
male attributes or are they typically female attributes in parenting
? The typical male contribution to two-parent parenting is that of applying
discipline. It appears that solo-mother families are now so common,
and lacking in discipline and control over the children, that the need
for discipline and control over children has itself been devalued. There
has, in effect, been a lowering of societal expectations of parental
control over children, in order to help solo mothers with their self-esteem
problems, and in order to devalue the contribution that the father makes.
From the webpage: http://www.akidsright.org/what.htm
'What changes with the assumption: "A child has a right to be with
their parents, a parent has a right to be with their child. Overriding
this presumption requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt presented
to a jury of your peers."
Where the correct course of action is not obvious on the basis of the
principle of the best interests of the child (and this may be the situation
in most cases before the Family Court), the relevant principle of Natural
Justice is the equal rights of both parents.
A Los Angeles Times article was reprinted in The Dominion Post on 13
May 2006, under the title A force of nature (and elsewhere in two parts:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Jun/02/il/FP606020320.html
and http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Jun/02/il/FP60601002.html
).
The Dominion Post's version ends up with the following anecdote:
"Giving -- to her 18-month-old daughter -- was life-saving, says
Ingrid .... That's how old her daughter was when her husband, a firefighter,
died in 1995. The shock of young widowhood sent her into despair. But
she always knew she had to get out of bed each morning. "What kept
me grounded was my daughter,' says (Ingrid). 'Ashley made me smile every
day. She gave me the will to live and move on.'
That reminds us of the typical situation of a separated or divorced
father -- alone, but without the child to give to, to get him out of
bed each morning, to keep him grounded, to make him smile every day,
or to give him the will to live and move on. Granting the overwhelming
majority of sole custody awards to women is a form of gendercide. It
invites suicide or other acts of desperation.
PART III: JUDICIAL AND LEGAL PROFESSIONAL ISSUES
The Informality of the Family Court
Professor Taimie L. Bryant, in her article, Family Models, Family Dispute
Resolution and Family Law in Japan ((1995) 14 UCLA Pacific Basin LJ
1), refers to the Japanese ie model of the family, "a patrilineal,
patriarchal chain of authority extending between the eldest sons of
successive generations." She goes on to state:
"Family Court mediation, which is a prerequisite to litigation
of most types of family disputes in Japan, reinforces this ideology
.... This Article explores how and why this is true despite the fact
that neither the laws regulating the family nor the legal system as
it deals with dispute resolution requires the adoption of one particular
model."
It is probably typical of a (latently) Feminist legal article that
Bryant's reasoning is not particularly clear, but the core of her explanation
of why Japanese Family Court mediation reinforces the ideology is as
follows:
"...clients must present their positions and the backgrounds of
the dispute in terms that would meet with approval by wealthy members
of a generation or two older than they" (i.e. the mediators --
PZ)
Assuming that Bryant's analysis is more or less correct, we can see
that mediation, being a confidential process held behind closed doors
and ratified by the Family Court, would tend to reinforce the ideology
and values of the mediators, which in New Zealand includes Family Court
judges. As Bryant points out, clients have to present their positions
and the backgrounds of the dispute in terms that would meet with approval
by the mediators. This puts men at a disadvantage, since the Western
legal culture has to a large extent adopted Feminist ideology and grafted
it onto conservative, anti-male chivalry -- as can be seen from other
pages on this website.
Reasonableness and rationality uncommon (in the legal system as well),
though presumed by legal system to be common
Marxists use the term "objectively" to distinguish people's
real political stance from what they say their stance is. I suppose
that 100% of male lawyers would say that they are men. Objectively,
however, 90% of them are political women. And, objectively, 90% of female
lawyers are political women, too.
A person is politically female if they support increased power for
women, and a person is politically male if they support increased power
for men. Your typical New Zealand male lawyer sees that only 39% of
lawyers are women*, and this reinforces his conditioned
response to support Feminist programmes and initiatives whenever he
comes across them. On the other hand, if he knew (as he should do, if
he was competent) that female criminals are more likely than males to
receive a sentence of community service, supervision, a community programme
-- or no sentence at all -- and less likely than males to receive a
prison sentence, periodic detention, or a monetary penalty**,
it probably would not even register in his conscious mind at all, and
he would carry on supporting Feminist causes, like the political woman
that he is.
Prima facie, of course, this disparity in sentencing by sex is the
result of 90% of female lawyers being objectively female (Feminist)
and 90% of male lawyers being objectively female (Feminist or chivalrous).
*National Business Review, 24 February 2006,
in Jock Anderson's "Case Load" column.
** Ministry of Justice (1999): "Sentencing
in New Zealand: a statistical analysis".
Psychologists' Reports
Psychologists, like lawyers and judges, may be politically, religiously,
or psycho-sexually biased. They are often trained in anti-male university
departments. Psychology is not a very objective science. There is a
lot of politics and personal opinion in it. For example, the VUW Psych
Dept has advertised the fact that it does not teach the "Victorian"
Freud. In VUW, Feminism has been mainstreamed. And Massey University
has a course on the Psychology of Women, without having one on the Psychology
of Men. This is despite the fact that many Psychologists, including
Freud, did most of their work with female subjects.
Second opinions of psychologists' reports should be routine, and the
original psychologist's report should be released immediately upon demand
by any party to Family Court proceedings. The psychologist preparing
the second opinion should routinely have access to all relevant parties.
Hostility and obstructiveness by other professionals
Amongst all the Feminist talk about so-called "Employment Equity",
what has been ignored in the focus on salaries are such factors as the
amount of danger and dirt involved in jobs, and also the amount of power
over members of the public that the jobs give to the worker involved.
Given women's gravitation towards jobs involving people-contact, a lot
of the jobs that give people power over a man's attempt to get care
of or access to his children are held by women, who often use this power
to frustrate the man's wishes.
Psychologists have been mentioned above. In fact, any occupation that
is staffed by people with a university education will have a Feminist
bias, because of the indoctrination that occurs at university. When
you go to the office of a Court, the vast majority of the people you
see will be women, and Peter Zohrab can give examples of hostility and/or
obstructivism that he has experienced at the hands of such women.
Feminism in the Legal Profession
It is the norm for legal practitioners to be taught a fictional, anti-male
approach to domestic violence. For example, the September 2006 issue
of Council Brief (the organ of the Wellington District Law Society)
contains an advertisement for a Domestic Violence Seminar, arranged
by the Wellington District Law Society Family Law Committee, which will
have as speakers representatives of the Wellington Community Law Centre
and the National Network of Stopping Violence Services, both of which
are known to ignore female violence -- despite the fact that women commit
at least as much domestic violence as men, which is plain for all to
see in the annotated research bibliography at http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
.
See: Open Letter to Family Law Section, New Zealand Law Society --
see famlawls.html
See also: State religion is feminism (published in The Dominion Post
22 May 2006) also at: statreli.html .
And see: Two Legal Rhodes Scholars at tworoads.html
.
The Law Society has a "Women's Consultative Group", which
has the avowed aim of "influenc(ing) decisions that affect women."
Obviously, most/all decisions affecting women also affect men, and there
is no counterweight that presents the male point of view in the Law
Society. It would be nice if male lawyers had a rational reason for
not forming such a group, but the impression one gets is that they are
simply not aware of any need for one. Even those who disagree with Feminism
do not seem to see it as compatible with their masculinity to form a
group with other men to oppose women. It is therefore basically for
irrational reasons that male lawyers allow feminist pressure on the
law to remain unopposed.
It is impossible for men and fathers to have any confidence in lawyers
and judges, because they are under the influence of the anti-male Law
Society. If men and fathers have no confidence in lawyers and judges,
they can have no confidence in the Legal System as a whole. This can
only result in eventual, creeping revolt, expressed in some of several
possible forms.
One father says that the female Family Court judge in his case said
that she was there to protect women and children, not men. This is obviously
sexist and discriminatory, and shows that Feminists only say that Feminism
is about equality for the purpose of achieving the political goals that
they want to achieve. Once they have achieved them -- e.g. getting a
lot of women named as judges -- they then feel free to abandon the "equality"
rhetoric.
Similarly, the Ministry of Health homepage (as at 13 September 2006)
has a picture of a woman and two children (no men) at the top of its
website, which is surely symbolic of the way taxpayers' money is spent
in the Health sector. It should also be noted that these three people
are all White.
Lawyers making most of law for clients as professional duty
On the other side of the ledger, it must be realised that a lawyer's
job is to make the best use of the available law for the benefit of
his/her client -- within certain limits (such as the lawyer's overriding
duty to the Court), anyway. So what to a man may seem at times to be
evil behaviour by the mother's lawyer may sometimes just be a lawyer
making use of the fact that the theory and practice of the relevant
laws heavily favour the mother.
Lawyers and Public Relations
Another relevant point is that, under the legislation currently in
force, lawyers have very limited duties to their clients and to the
general public. They are treated by the Act like a private, free-market
profession which just happens to have a role in the legal system. The
converse of this is that lawyers do not bother doing much PR, with the
result that the public has little knowledge of the very real contraints
(e.g. of time and money) under which they work. It is true that many
lawyers are very wealthy, but then they are in business, just as much
as Bill Gates is in business. If there is something wrong with this
situation, then it will have to be changed by legislation.
Styles of Lawyering (Hired Gun etc)
There is no more powerless position for a man to be in than for him
to be in a lawyer's office -- he is at the mercy of a person who (arguably)
is usually pursuing totally separate agendas, in addition to, or even
conflicting with, the agenda that his/her male client wishes him/her
to pursue. One such agenda occurs in the context of the lawyer being
an Officer of the Court, which role the lawyer is of course free to
interpret very liberally.
It is important to realize that, if men and fathers cannot find any/enough
lawyers to represent them adequately, they are in effect deprived of
their human rights. Lawyers exist because it is very hard to get anywhere
in the Legal System without them. As is well-known, men and fathers
often complain about lawyers - about how expensive they are, but mainly
about how anti-male they are. That is why so many fathers try to do
without lawyers in the Family Court.
Lawyers have too much discretion vis-à-vis their clients, in
general, and in the Family Court context, in particular. They have a
duty to act in what they are pleased to see as "the client's best
interests", they have a duty to the court not to appear "obstructive",
and they have a duty to themselves and to their own careers not to act
too far outside the legal culture in which they operate.
All these "duties" can operate against lawyers' male clients
in the Family Court, as well as in other parts of the Legal System.
Largely because of the socializing influence of the Law Society (especially
at conferences and courses) and university Law faculties, lawyers operate
in an anti-male, Feminist culture. Feminist anti-male lies about Domestic
Violence, for example, are probably propagated as facts within this
culture. This means that a male client's assertion of Men's/Fathers'
Rights might be undermined by his own lawyer, who would see the expression
of such views as not being in the client's best interests. A lawyer
might also refrain from pushing such viewpoints him/herself, in order
not to be viewed by the court as "obstructive", and so as
not to be viewed as a maverick by his/her colleagues.
One solution to this is to change the Legal culture, but it would be
simpler (though no easier to achieve) to limit the amount of discretion
that a lawyer has. If a client is paying a lawyer huge fees, the client
should have the right to expect the lawyer to do exactly what they are
instructed to do. This is what is called the "Hired Gun" model
of lawyering. Unfortunately, this is only one of the several styles
of lawyering which law students are taught at Law School to regard as
acceptable alternatives. The lawyer should explain clearly why they
think that the client is acting against their own interests, if that
is the case, but the lawyer should then bow to the wishes of the paying
client.
Selection of FC judges
The 1996 study "Gender Equity in the New Zealand Judicial System:
Judges' Perceptions of Gender Issues" states that Family Court
judges were more likely to think that gender bias against women is "widespread
but subtle" than were other judges. This belief is a product of
Feminist theory, so we can conclude that Family Court judges are more
influenced by Feminism than are other judges.
Since the Men's/Fathers' Movement finds Family Court judges to be biased
against men, we may suspect that this is because many Family Court judges
are Feminist. This is not to say that this bias against women does not
exist, but any belief in its existence is likely to arise as a result
of reading Feminist research which itself is biased against men and
instils, or reinforces, an anti-male mindset of its own.
Judge Adams (in the TV programme) appeared to be well-meaning, and
(whether by accident or design) he was shown to become emotionally involved
in his cases – which is perhaps inevitable. Of course, where you
have emotional involvement, you also inevitably have bias.
In the selection of Family Court judges, the emphasis should be on
selecting judges who are able to be just -- not on selecting judges
who have a friendly demeanour or are people-oriented, or get on well
with children, etc. Judges should above all be just, and it is for social
workers to have these other people-related attributes. If it seems that
the job of a family court judge require such other skills, then the
job should be changed by legislation, in order to restrict the job to
the one of dispensing justice.
Bias
Bias is very hard to prove, for a number of reasons. One reason is
that the very people you are talking to about someone else's bias may
share the bias that you are complaining about ! So they will not see
what you consider to be bias as real bias at all ! It is like complaining
to Adolf Hitler about anti-semitism on the part of a concentration-camp
guard !
There are four basic factors which load the dice against men:
- Male judges and male parties in the courtroom are often chivalrous,
and equate heterosexuality with not criticising women;
- Institutionalised Feminism in the society that we all live in constantly
disseminates so-called facts about bad things that men do and about
the bad things that women have done to them (but not vice-versa);
- Male professionals (including judges) are under pressure to prove
that they practice "gender equity and are not "male chauvinists"
or "old-fashioned".
- Female judges are empowered to discriminate against men by the lack
of any concerted opposition to the morphing of Feminism from a supposed
concern with "equality" to the imposition of Girl Power.
The Institute of Judicial Studies (see judistud.html
and unhurico.html) teaches judges so-called
"Gender Equity", which is a Feminist concept which does not
even recognise the possibility of anti-male bias -- only anti-female
bias. Therefore it is itself an inherently biased concept. The media
and the education system have no real constraints placed on them as
to the agendas that workers in those industries are allowed to pursue.
It is called "academic freedom" or "freedom of the press",
but it results in the oppression of men by mindless defamation.
On the page famsecrt.html , in particular,
you can see an analysis of the actions and words of Judge Adams in a
television programme about the Family Court that was produced by the
Family Court itself in 2001 as a public relaitons exercise.
That video was evidence that Family Court judges (and others in the
legal profession) are taught a list of types of people they should not
discriminate against, and, if they think they are managing to avoid
discriminating against them, they think they are doing a good job. Judge
Adams actually said in the video that he thought he could monitor himself
for bias, so as to make sure he wasn't biased, which is totally absurd!
We are all human beings and capable of bias, and if we could monitor
our own biases there would be little need for the judicial review and
appeal processes. The reason that he felt he could do this was that
he has been taught a politically correct list of people that he, as
a White male, is likely to be biased against, such as women, ethnic
and racial minorities and male and female homosexuals, and he has received
feedback on in-service training courses run by the Law Society and/or
Institute of Judicial Studies which encourages him to believe that he
can avoid such biases.
What is wrong with that is not that White males do not have a tendency
to be biased against such groups -- they do have this tendency -- but
that they can also be biased against fellow White males (especially
if they are bending over backwards to be unbiased towards the other
groups) and also that members of these other groups can be biased against
Whites, males, and against each other, as well.
This list-based approach is a common feature of Feminism and political
correctness in general, and can also be found in the area of Sexist
Language. When Peter Zohrab was giving a Staff/Postgraduate lunchtime
seminar in the Victoria University Linguistics department one day, for
example, he criticised the media (TV One and TV 3) for banning words
such as "fireman" and "chairman", which arguably
discriminate against women, but not banning words such as "gunman"
and "manhunt", which arguably discriminate against men. Professor
Laurie Bauer commented, in what he obviously thought was a criticism
of my argument, that all the TV stations were doing was applying a list
of banned words. No doubt that was true, but that just shifted some
of the blame from the TV stations to their Linguistic advisers, and
one could also contend that the TV stations should have chosen a more
balanced set of advisers -- not just Feminists.
Appendix I to this Submission comprises an article about conflict of
interest in the Family Court that was published in the New Zealand Law
Journal in August 2006.
For more information on anti-male bias, please go to the webpage http://equality.netfirms.com/
and search for "bias". When this was done on 12 September
2006, it resulted in 95 hits.
Example of Bias
Here is an analysis of two days in the course of one couple's custody/access
battle:
(Day A) One day in 1992, both parties applied under the then Guardianship
Act 1968 to have primary care of their two children. The judge ended
up awarding custody to the mother.
From the written judgment, it appears that the judge saw one point
as being in the father's favour and another point as counting against
the mother, although, since the judge just characterised the mother's
behaviour as "undesirable", she did not appear to attach much
weight to it.
On the other side of the equation, as it were, the judge found two
points as favouring the mother, and two other points as counting against
the father. So, just from a purely arithmetical standpoint, the father
lost on points -- although, obviously, no judge would give equal weight
to all the points in such a case.
Anti-male bias is evident in that the judgment interprets the overriding
principle of the welfare of the child (s 23 Guardianship Act 1968) in
a questionable way. The children are stated to be currently in the custody
of their mother and doing well there, and it is stated that to move
them to the father's custody would be unsettling. That is one of the
two major points which caused the judge to award custody to the mother.
However, she also states that this status quo situation of mother-custody
"was achieved at least in part by unilateral action which is generally
considered undesirable by this Court." She does not raise the issue
of whether this unilateral action by the mother of removing the children
from the father's custody was in the children's best interests, which
it presumably was not. It was certainly in the mother's best interests.
At another place in the judgment she criticises the father for his supposed
"inability ... to put the children's needs ahead of his own feeling
at times". It seems to be anti-male bias in the judge which causes
her to refrain from criticising the mother's unilateral action in the
same strong terms -- and her unilateral action was what in effect decided
who ended up getting the custody award.
There is also anti-male bias in the fact that the judge fails to assess
the power relationship between the person with custody and the person
with (or desirous of having) access. She states that there has been
great difficulty in communicating and negotiating arrangements between
the parents, but she does not assign blame for this. It would seem to
be in the nature of such arrangements that the party with custody would
be the more powerful one, so that any difficulties in communicating
and arranging matters are more likely to be the fault of the custodial
parent. After all, the children's day-to-day routines are based around
their custodial parent's home, and they would want to get back there
and resume them, so the non-custodial parent's options as to delaying
returning them to the custodial parent are relatively limited, whereas
the custodial parent can interfere with access arrangements without
seriously impinging on the children's day-to-day routines.
There is further anti-male bias in that the judge condemns the father
for getting so upset with the mother that he stopped access for two
months. If the father was upset by difficulties caused by the mother's
use of her power as custodial parent, then the judge was heaping injustice
upon injustice. There is apparently a frequent pattern of Family Court
judges being unable to empathise with fathers' feelings. It is worth
pointing out that if the father had persisted with access diuring that
period, and violence had broken out, the prevalent anti-male bias in
relation to domestic violence would have resulted in penalties only
to him -- no matter what had actually happened.
The second main point which caused the judge to award custody to the
mother was that the father was angry at and distrustful of the mother,
which might (the judge said) impinge on his parenting abilities. It
is hard to see the logic of this, since it was not stated that he was
angry at the children, and his parenting would be directed at them,
not at the mother, which was the person he was angry at! This seems
also to be an instance of anti-male bias.
(B) One day in 1995 the couple had two sessions -- a Conference, followed
by a Hearing. The Conference was for the purpose of enforcing a consent
order, whereby the elder child was to be in the custody of the father
and the younger one in the custody of the mother. The mother had agreed
to this arrangement reluctantly, in order to facilitate an overseas
trip, but then had not complied with the order.
Most remarkably, the judge (who I will assume was a male) opens the
session with some remarks critical of the parents for their on-going
battles over custody and access, in the course of which he states:
"I preface my decision with these remarks because if there children
suffer any permanent harm then the fault is not with the system or with
the Court, but with the parents."
There is room for strong disagreement with this statement, since the
mother might well have drawn the conclusion from the 1992 hearing that
the judge was pro-women and would let her get away with almost anything,
including breaching a consent order. And she turned out to be right
!
In this hearing, the judge finds that two points favour the father
and three points favour the mother. He criticises the mother for agreeing
to a custody arrangement just because it suited her wish to take an
overseas trip, putting the children's welfare second to her own -- but
he only called this "unfortunate", which is a very mild term
of criticism. He also stated that the found that the mother's breaching
of a court order favoured the father very heavily.
However, what tipped his eventual decision in favour of the mother
(in the Hearing later that same day) was that the Lawyer for the Children
said that the children wanted to be with their mother (which the judge
later confirmed by meeting with the children), and the judge saw their
wishes as relevant to their welfare, which was the paramount legal consideration
to be applied under the Guardianship Act 1968. He also said that he
was worried that forcing the older child to live with his father would
spoil the relationship between the two, and he further said that if
the Court forced the child to live with his father, this might turn
the child against the Court.
This decision can also be heavily criticised, because, if the Court
is not going to punish mothers for breaching court orders and for putting
their own interests above those of their children, that is bound to
undermine the Rule of Law and make the Court look like a rubber stamp
for the wishes of the mother. It was surely arguable that by breaching
the court order the mother was setting a bad example to her children,
which was detrimental to their welfare. The judge had no means of knowing
how much the relationship between father and child would actually be
damaged by forcing them to live together. That was pure speculation.
Also, it was not clear that the possibility of turning the child against
the Court had much to do with the welfare of the child, as such -- but
what was clear was that the Court's anti-male bias would certainly turn
the father against the Court, as it certainly has done !
The judge adjourned for one month to allow time for a psychologist's
report, leaving the children both in the interim custody of the mother.
Lawyer for the Child
The Judge relies on Psychologists and Lawyer for the Child to guide
his decisions, but these people are not true experts, are not accountable,
and are probably anti-male in the majority of cases. To avoid bias,
the Lawyer for the Child and the Psychologist should not be appointed
by the Court alone, because courts are female-dominated. And we have
Psychologists because we think we need them – not because they
have been proved by any reasonable measure to actually know what they
are doing. In addition, Psychology, as a field, is heavily influenced
by anti-male Feminist propaganda. I don't agree that the Lawyer for
the Child should be appointed by the Court, since the Court no doubt
tends to appoint lawyers who have the approved, anti-male, Feminist
attitudes.
" Lawyer for the Child should be barred from expressing a preference
for custody by one parent over custody by the other, because such a
stated preference permits the judge to "cop out" of exercising
their own judgement. This is one of the main reasons why the principle
of "the best interests of the child" is so flawed. Such a
lawyer, who has been chosen by a Feminist Court, is free to interpret
this wooly principle in a way that is consistent with their anti-male
tendencies, and the judge can then wash their hands of the matter and
rely on the biased guidance of this Lawyer for the Child.
Accusations (DV & Sex Abuse) that hold water only against men
(because of informality, Feminist sexism and chivalry).
Feminism, which has been for some time a well-funded industry, can
be seen as a research project to demonstrate that women are good and
that men are bad. Researchers, with great creativity, produce theories
within this overall research paradigm, and their friends in the media
and in academia publicise them and teach them as fact, while censoring
opposing views -- no matter how well-founded in terms of hard data.
So large areas of our world-view have been taken over by these Feminist
perspectives, which are often taken for granted. This has the consequence
that a man has great difficulty making accusations against a woman stick,
whereas accusations against a man by a woman will be readily believed.
This has a great impact on the way decisions are made as regards access
and day-to-day care.
Two issues that are particularly prominent in this regard are domestic
violence and child sexual abuse. Sexual abuse by women is not taken
anyway near as seriously -- it is often treated as a joke -- as sexual
abuse by men, which has been hyped up by Feminist media and academics.
Domestic violence is commonly portrayed in a way that is nothing short
of insane in its blatant disregard for academic research and reality
generally.
Feminists use Protection Orders to separate fathers from their children
-- in ex parte court hearings where the father is not even present or
represented ! Then the Family Courts say he is violent and it is in
the best interests of the children to stay separated from him. But all
this is based on the anti-male Feminist lie that Domestic Violence is
caused by men wanting to control women, and that women are always innocent
of any psychological or physical violence.
For two formal legal articles on Domestic violence and the Law, see:
- Sexual bias, fathers’ rights, domestic violence, and the Family
Court – a reply to Wendy Davis at: dvreply.html
- The Influence of Non-Legal Research on Legal Approaches to Ex Parte
Domestic Violence Protection Orders at: dvpobora.html
Please also go to http://equality.netfirms.com/index.html
and search for "sexual abuse" -- with quotation marks (29
hits on 12 September 2006) -- and "domestic violence" -- with
quotation marks (137 hits on 12 September 2006).
PART IV: ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
Institute of Judicial Studies
The Institute of Judicail Studies should be barred from teaching so-called
"Gender Equity", which is no more or less than anti-male propaganda.
Availability of Judgments
The Ministry of Justice should report regularly on its website as to
- What judgments have occurred since its last reporting date;
- Which of these have been published, and where;
- Which of these have not been published, and why.
There should be strict criteria, posted on that website, which have
to be adhered to if any judgement is not to be published. Publication
should be the routine, default procedure. If this is already the state
of affairs, this fact needs to be more widely available and made known
to the general public.
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