Fuzzy Logic

Fuzzy Logic is a recognized method in mathmatics and statistical analysis. Sometimes it works too well:

10% of people have personality disorders.
10% of cases end up in family court. Do the math.
-- unknown woman in the Herald Sun 8 August 2006

More than four times as many women are diagnosed with personality disorders as men. (ABS)
A reasonable comment must be made that the men simply don't seek treatment and often self-medicate with alcohol or other drugs. There is no reason men shouldn't be equally susceptible to personality disorders.

Yet if you take the statistics one step further ..
5 times as many men as women commit suicide. How many are a direct result of mishandled family court issues is an endless argument because these numbers aren't open to the public.

However, 80% of the time, custody and property is ordered by the Family Court to the woman.
This fact argues that the Family Court assigns property and children into unstable and dysfunctional homes far too often.
Family Court orders reward personality disorders with property, and assigning children to mentally ill women -- at least 60% of the rulings are incorrect, unless you consider assigning children to a dysfunctional home in their best interests?

Further taking the results of a Put-up-or-shut-up attitude towards allegations of abuse and domestic violence based on Practice Directive 2 in the Family Court, where 75% of the allegations are dropped, and the correllation is becoming very clear.
It is reasonable to conclude that approximately 60% of male suicides are a direct result of bad rulings from the family courts and magistracy.

What can be done?

One of the roots of the problem is the abuse of Intervention Orders.
A few suggestions for the courts:

• Make it clear on the application for an Intervention Order (aka AVO or DVO) that perjury is a serious offense before the courts. This sort of perjury is particularly heinous, since it affects generations. The only way to accomplish this is to convict a number of women of perjury.
• Currently women are encouraged to perjure themselves on the Intervention Order at nearly every level in the social and legal system. This will not stop until funding is cut to those agencies, lawyers lose their licenses to practice law, and some people are heavily fined and/or jailed for condoning such perjury.
• Make it clear that an Intervention Order is not a license to abuse; that the injunctions against abuse of any kind goes both ways. If a criminal case cannot be made for abuse, then issue the court orders against both parties. Currently, women see that the prejudice from the police and courts allow them to do anything they want once the Intervention Order is in place from their side. (I experienced this myself.)

The courts are not the place to determine who is abusive in a relationship. The attempts have proven an abysmal failure that has a price in lost lives, damaged lives, and the dying respect for the courts.

Hopeful foolishness

Given the insipid and stubborn history of the courts, this statement is simply comical:

"The interesting thing... will be to see whether family lawyers can become family dispute resolution practitioners and there does not seem to be any compelling reason why that should not be the case." (from "First FRCs hit the ground running" published by CCH News)

At best this is hopeful foolishness; at worst it will become the "party line" when the new FCoA procedures fail.
Despite the idealistic statements of those when they start practicing Family Law in Australia, this area of the law has become the most deceitful, vicious, and unregulated arena of law. It has proven to destroy people and families more than anything else through its dispute resolutions. The blatant bias in nationally known and notorious -- to the point that the bias is used for blackmail and abuse by ordinary women.
To expect that the lawyers who practice in this arena unfettered by the usual standards of evidence, habeas corpus, and any pretense of oversight can suddenly become "family dispute practitioners" is ludicrous.
It may happen after a few women go to jail for perjury along with their lawyers, and the whole social and legal support system is retrained and culled, but that is not happening.

Sadly, the overall political direction does not argue for such a return to the recognition of civil and human rights in Australia:

The Federal Government is selective in how it treats our past. It did away with habeas corpus but not plans to bring back prison hulks. (Anthony C, Hastings The Age 7 Aug 2006)