Love and Family Law

The most important aspect of family law is the love of the parents for the children and each other. Anyone who hears the term, "family law", intuitively realizes this fact. Yet as as "family law" progresses, it increasingly excludes any consideration of this aspect of the family. So long as the courts and the law ignore this factor in their proceedings and structure, the courts are relegated to the irrational.

Love is based on trust and respect, two other emotions that the courts ignore. The courts vacate the love, trust and respect between all the parties, usurping the concept of individuals in favor of procedures and more tightly defined proscriptions. The only trust and respect remaining in "family law" are to be directed to the courts and officers of the courts.
Yet the courts are not members of the family. This simple fact eludes the courts, and confounds the families which face the courts.

Marriage and Madness
Based on the concepts which guide the judgments and ongoing actions of the courts and bureaucracy, the courts and bureaucracy may as well be parties to the marriage ceremony.
Of course, a marriage is not a marriage until it is registered with the state. A couple can exchange vows before a dozen congregations but it isn't a marriage until the registrar fills out the paperwork.
This is a uniquely binding contract, since it is not the only means for tax breaks and family responsibility to be placed in Australia. A couple can simply register for benefits as a De Facto, and after 6 months it is as binding as any registered marriage. However, registering as a de facto couple is done in applications to CentreLink, for benefits. There is an easy cynicism in that fact.

De Facto
De facto relationships, although they did not enjoy legislative access to the federal courts until July 2006 (- This was one of my ex's main reasons for executing her abuse of the Intervention Order process when she did. She and her barrister gloated about it the extorted settlement. -), are still largely the province of the state courts.
Over 40% of marriages begin as De Facto relationships (ABS); and there are more than 1 million people in De Facto relationships in Australia. These relationships can produced children; and the people involved should have all the rights of any married person, but they don't.
It is only when the children of a De Facto relationship appear in the federal courts and bureaucratic rules, commonly accompanied by false allegations of abuse, that the "protections" of the law are involved.

Indeed, it would be reasonable to require by law that anyone entering into a registered marriage or indicating a De Facto relationship undergo a full explanation of the FLA and its attendant agencies - before going any further. Although the courts will recoil at such a suggestion, I'm sure that those who are in love will hardly be dissuaded. Most will simply find such training a raving bore.
It might, however, save a few shaky families from being formed. And such training would be at least a step towards equal protection under the law for all parties, including any children.

Love and Lawyers in Family Law
Rarely have two words been more appositive and dichotomous than "love" and "lawyers" in this context.
Indeed, lawyers are trained that the clients be treated like ‘wards of the state’, as if they were mentally deficient or children too young to understand the issues before them.
Rank sexism is displayed by the courts and lawyers when the father is told not to declare his love for his child(ren) or his ex because it will be seen as a motive to abuse by the courts; yet the mother is expected to beam her love for her children - and loathing for her husband - during the court procedures.
It must truly frustrate the magistrates and lawyers that some 37% (nearly 2 out of 5) of those who put on this performance for the courts return to the relationship after divorce. Is this because they are still in love or find new reasons to love one another? Or is it just the force of patriarchy and financial pressures?

There is nothing constructive in these attitudes, especially when children and parents are involved. That any parent or individual would endure a professional attitudes designed to bloat egos and perpetuate an arrogant laziness is astounding.

It's the Law
The range of human emotions and expression are not defined in the law. The best the law can do is to proscribe certain actions.
When the law attempts to define fully an individual, it fails; and in its failure breaches the human and civil rights of the individual, which are the moral groundwork on which law and society find their purpose. The law and the courts cannot deal with the concept of love. There is no mentioon of it in the law. Yet it is love that brings two people together into a marriage; and it is love that keeps them together - whether it is love for one another, their children, or just a love of financial advantage or social appearances.

The Law cannot deal with the love of one person for another. It gives no "weighting" to such a concept, as it does for finances, possessions or income.
The Law cannot deal with the love of a parent for their children, at least not well. Even if the love between two people dies or becomes poisoned for some reason, the love of each parent for the children remains. When the law attempts to define how this love is expressed, the purpose of the law seems to be to ensure that any love that remains is turned to loathing. Both parents have to struggle against this pressure for years.
In the saddest cases, the law succeeds in even turning the love of a parent for their children to resentment.

Love, I was taught by literature and experience, is a strange emotion. Unlike other emotions, love is given and returned in equal measure. Even those who fear to love cannot resist its irresistible power.
The love between two people is as instinctive as the love of a parent for a newborn child. Science has only recently proven what bards and history have recorded since the dawn of time, yet the law is silent on this fact of human existence. There is no "weight" in the law for love.
At that point become the enemy of the human rights and freedoms it was established to protect.
Once under the "protections" of family law, the family may as well make room for magistrates, lawyers and bureaucrats in their homes. The family will never be free of them. The family will suffer for the arrogance and presumptions of the courts and bureaucracy for the rest of their lives.
The law ignores the damage done to adults, in favor of protecting the children by depriving the parents of their authority and self respect - and in the process only does greater damage over years to the children.

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Dan on Parental Alienation

(A comment by Dan O'Moore from the fathers4equality forum on Yahoo reproduced here with permission)

IMO this is where alienation plays it's most pivotal role. Kicking and screaming children need to be taught to respect thier parents. It is essential in raising reasonable people.
R E S P E C T.
Why does anyone think our society is in the whole it is in?
IMO no one respects JACK SHIT and why should they? The legislation does not respect it's people, the legislation is a tool of money hungry posturing puppets all wanting thier bight of the pie.

Normal children have issues with parents. Childish issues generally but issues none the less. For the alarmists yes there is abuse and that abuse should be stopped but lets look at the less extreme cases. Not all cases of separation mean abuse of children prior to the separation as some would have us believe. Alienation is abuse.

Enter the child abuse that is opportune parental Alienation.

Opportunity for children to act out against one or the other parent guided by the alienating parent.

The alienating parent has great opportunity.

Promises/threats/ accusations are made by the alienating parent and drilled into the children's minds without the excluded parent around there is no rebuttal. Essentially brainwashing IMO.

The children's world is small. Smaller because it is halved. They try to survive. They do what they can to reduce conflict and protect one or the other parent. Generally they try to protect the parent who is most consequential in their lives: The custodial parent.

How can any child make a decision on the parent they wish to/should be with. Their judgment is essentially distorted. The consequences to the ongoing mental health of the child are innumerable. Guilt, anger, hate, jealousy, angst, fear all go into the mix.

When parents parent they will, if they care for the children, make some decisions for the children that the children wont like. Easy opportunity for alienation.

Dads are generally given the role of disciplinarian of the house. "You wait till your father gets home".

Fathers are easily made out to be dangerous." I love you darling you know I'll never hurt you, I'll never let Daddy tell you off again".

I feel the choice of the child is not good parenting unless it is a choice of friends, school subject, sporting activity, ice cream flavour or the like.

The Secret court seems to like its position of overseeing parent. This is why we have alienation that is inadvertently sanctioned, delivered & amplified by the Secret court. IMO this is essentially why the Secret court is not receiving parental alienation syndrome easily. As all in the court live off it!

Child's choice equals alienation opportunity IMO. While children must have the right to choose that right should be implimented very carefully. Just because a child doesn't like one or the other parent does NOT mean the parent is not parenting well. Children are at a grave disadvantage if they are to choose on the basis of which parent they like the most versus both parents police each others actions toward the child and have only the childs best interests at heart. Two parents offering balance and a broader spectrum of reactionary and educational outlook.

Both parents mould new individuals of their children with the balance that is two parents. That is the essence of life and natural selection. Individualism creates new ideas. Ideas that seem to be lacking in our country. Many overseas people have told me that we Australians are seen as the cattle of the world shunted whichever way our legislation pushes us and what do we do about it? Nothing! All the Australian votes go toward enterprise. Our little group (for our egos - ever expanding group - :) is a rarity of public discussion regarding legislation. Australia has been moulded against the individual. Is it no wonder that most individual enterprises fail on all scales?

Only having one parent makes half an individual. Half an individual is behind the leaders from the start. No less a different person but definitely bereft of the love, experience and parenting quality of the excluded parent. Knowing Daddy loves you is not being loved at all, that is having love taken away by exclusion. Being loved is unreplaceable. I dare anyone to rebut that. Money can't by love! I believe this is where youth anger is building from. The lack of love.

Besides life what is it we give our children? Our love & life experiences that is what. That adds up to a whole lot of love missing from a child's life. It adds up to a biased outlook for their lives. It does not add up that children should have either parent excluded. Even in extreme cases I believe that children should have opportunity to glean love and knowledge from both parents. It makes them whole, a whole individual.

Yes of course there will be scare mongering but with good quality observational accounting by re routing funds from bias enterprise the government could tip the balance in favour of better outcomes for children.

Education of errant parents is something I feel is lacking all ways round the Secret court structure. The Secret court is all about the fight. It is all about keeping income status quo for Secret court stakeholders. If they actually cared about the children the monster as we have it would not be in place.

IMO The legislation we now have is not about the people who must live under it. It is essentially political posturing. Nothing goes through without a vote attached to it.

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Possible class action: Discriminatory practices

Agencies working with parents often hear of, or receive complaint, that one parent is making false allegations in order to slow up the FCoA or FMC proceedings. Such allegations do considerable harm to the alleged perpetrator, not only in court proceedings but in their personal and professional lives.
The problem with all the legal verbiage in the new law that defines it is a simple matter of a Risk-Reward analysis. Until false allegations engenders enough of a risk to to outweigh the rewards that can be attained, it will be meaningless.

In the recently revised Family Law of Australia (FLA) such allegations are mentioned in many sections. The number of mentions in itself illustrates the political attempt to 'bulldoze' the public using the law. The punishments are comical compared to the possible risk.

The problem with this change and all the legal verbiage in the new law that defines it is a simple matter of a Risk-Reward analysis. Until false allegations engenders enough of a risk to to outweigh the rewards that can be attained, it will be meaningless.

The courts will be loath to make the order because the parent making the allegations has no income other than Government income support. It is meaningless to someone on government support to threaten them with financial penalties. Even if they are forced to pay, they know it will only be the government paying itself, in effect.

In other legal procedures, perjury - and that is what it should be called, not the euphemism "false allegations" - can mean jail time. Jail time is something that someone on government support will respect; especially if it means being separated from their children and possibly their home and possessions.

Making false reports and swearing false affidavits is criminal in every forum outside family law. Family Law is "different", in that it does not adhere to many of the recognized principles of western jurisprudence and legislation.
The 1 July 2006 ammendments require a costs order to be made against a parent making deliberately false allegations. Is this enough?

The government is happy to take away basic human and civil rights on the basis of false allegations, but is not willing to even mention commensurate punishment. Playing with the terms, the government has no sincere punishment for "perverting the course of justice" or "contempt of court" when the euphemism "false allegations" is employed.
It is another example of inequality before the law based on gender. It can be the basis of a class action suit against the government and numerous agencies.
This legalized discrimination, as has been noted by many legal scholars, guides 'judicial discretion' and the actions of other professionals and semi-professionals throughout the system and society. I think this can be proven easily, and these arguments have been used as the basis of lawsuits in the past - perhaps not in Australia. The examples I refer to come from the US and UK.

Since even the unequal risk is rarely real, the whole of the text of the sections quoted is nonsense. The rort will be much sharper defined when the policies of various police administrations across Australia are included; along with the implementation of these policies which are documented in statistics that already exist.

In Victoria, for example, police policy dictates that if officers are summoned to the scene of an argument, they are to initiate an Intervention Order against the man - and remove him from the premises if deemed necessary. The standard for 'deemed necessary' is simply continuing conflict, which leaves little discretion to the attending officers.
These Intervention Orders will be issued in spite even if both the man and woman involved state they are not needed or wanted. The Orders are initiated by the police.

This policy is highly politicized by Bracks and his Ministers, and based on misleading incomplete studies paid for by the government; and cited in the Press in inflammatory ways by Bracks administration Ministers (Hulls and Holding) along with other government spokespeople.

If such a class action were to be initiated, it would involve any man who has been removed from his home, lost possessions or income over the past decade. The reparations would be enormous, but they would be fair considering the amount of harm these practices have done to individuals, families, and the society as a whole.

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*Dirty Tricks in Family Law*

No kidding. 90%, huh?

*Dirty Tricks in Family Law*
By: Bettina Arndt

Herald Sun - Monday 12 Februeary 2007

...

Many of the women's groups are very nervous about new Family Relationship Centers (FRCs) set up particularly to deal with children's matters. The government has rightly concluded that caring for children after divorce is a relationship issue, not a legal one and that the previous adversarial system was disastrous for children. But that legal system served the interests of the punitive mother very well since it failed so dismally to enforce contact orders and allowed allegations of violence to be used to deny fathers contact with their children. Remember the 1999 magistrate's survey which found 90% of magistrates believed false AVO's were used as a tactic in family law cases "to deprive partners access to children"?

The article describes a few other tricks barristers have pulled. I could add one: Threatening ridiculous lawsuits as harassment and intimidation, but only when the couple is alone - then denying it in court. The threat is enhanced by saying her lawyer told her she could sue.
The barrister stands and questions the man: "There were no lawsuits threatened, isn't that right? You are lying to this court."
I got a taste of that one myself.

There must be some list of illegal stunts or dirty tricks somewhere.
What is surprising is, after years of this stuff, the magistrates and judges don't catch on... It really is their responsibility to seek the truth before making judgments.

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The most difficult part

Yesterday, someone actually asked me what was the most difficult part of this horrible time.
I thought about the weeks then months of panic attacks that continued for days followed by exhaustion; then said, "It was that there was nothing to defend against. - How do you defend against what didn't happen?"
If there had been incidents or specific accusations, it would have been much easier. But there was nothing. Not one specific incident - because there had never been any incidents.
There had been arguments, yes. I raised my voice, but never raised my hand to anyone.
The police had never been called to protect anyone.
There were no bruises, cuts or marks.

In fact, the only threats came from my ex, and her family. It's not hard to threaten someone who can barely stand.
I lost the right to recuperate from a painful surgery in my own home on nothing more than assumptions. Neither my ex nor anyone else accused me of anything specific. They couldn't. The best they could do was try to incite or invent incidents. There was nothing specific in the statements to begin the Intervention Orders; nor was there anything specific in the testimony in the court that warranted my being removed from my home.

I lost the right to even avoid arguments in my own home.
The police and courts assumed things that never happened, then acted as if they had. In a final act of injustice, a police prosecutor read into the record that I had been "increasingly abusive over two years" completely without evidence. If he had sought evidence, he would have found that I was increasingly abused over two years.

"That would be crazy making." I was told.
- "Yes, it is. But that is the state of justice in Victoria, Australia. You can't expect the police or courts to correct themselves, can you?" I replied, then asked to drop the subject.
It's all past now. It's been almost two years since I simply signed over the house to my ex, and she went off to celebrate her successful extortion.
You do have to wonder if the people who executed this abuse of their authority and the purpose of law ever question what they have done? I doubt it.
After all, I was just disabled, and a yank - two things Australians truly hate.

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Red Herrings all around

You gotta wonder what's going on.
For more than a year, a rising outcry about David Hicks has been fueled by his father and repeated articles in various press outlets. Now it turns out that all the government had to do was ask the US for Hicks to be released, and he almost certainly would be released. - Is this just a red herring to defer the attention of the Australian public from more important issues inside Australia?

There is no question why David Hicks' father would do anything he could to save his son from going to jail or being executed; or why the Australian attorneys hired by his father would apply pressure for his release.
But this is a man who was found armed in a war zone, opposing Australian troups and their allies, and had been trained to bomb Australians in order to destroy Australian society. He had converted voluntarily not only to Islam, but to the radical Islamic beliefs of Osama bin Laden.
Why would any Australian who valued their way of life or the safety of themselves or their children want David Hicks back in Australia?

Hicks faces some significant charges.

The 30-year-old convert to Islam was captured in Afghanistan where he allegedly fought alongside the ruling Taliban against US-led forces who invaded after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

He faces charges of conspiracy, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy.

If Hicks were returned to Australia, he would face none. At the time of his arrest, he had done nothing illegal in Australia.
If that doesn't sound insane enough, the fact that Australia does not bind itself to protect similar rights for the citizens of other countries within the borders of Australia makes the whole issue a massive hypocrisy. Why should other countries protect the rights of Australian citizens when Australia does not commit to protecting those same rights for anyone; even the citizens of Australia?

Politicians and governments rarely do things publicly without knowing the outcome beforehand. It's a cardinal rule of politics. If we assume this to be true, then the Australian government's overtures to the US are purely a sham to assuage the somewhat misguided sensibilities of some Australians. If we assume this to be true, then the Australian government has made it clear to the US that they do not want David Hicks returned to Australia - a position that would be perfectly logical and reasonable.

One commentator from the Australian blog summarized the whole situation:

ATTENTION Greg Hamilton (Letters, 8/1). Hicks was captured fighting for the enemy. He is a prisoner of war. He does not have to be charged. He does not have to be released. End of story.

When the revelation that most of the US congressmen and women who would have had to vote to release Hicks had never heard of him, those conclusions appear consistent and rational, if more than a little misleading and manipulative.
That sort of political misdirection has proven to be the savant talent of the Howard government; and it's been mimicked by successful state administrations. The Bracks government in Victoria has always found a way - usually a very expensive but attractive way - to redirect the public's attention from important issues to a sports extravaganza or some massive building project. Bracks favorite tool is to appoint another study to "look into it".
The most recent example was the outrageously political move of using taxpayer funding to find out if the public would support building more dams. Let the public pay to find out which decision would draw the most support; don't show any leadership - that might be politically dangerous.
If the idea weren't so disgusting, it would be a hilarious joke.

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The Horrible Time

Two years ago, this was a horrible time.
In a few days, on the 12th, my ex would threaten to sue me for $20,000.
About the 14th of January, she had threatened to sue me for $100,000; but apparently even she and her attorney saw that was ludicrous. Realistically, all of that was what we had spent over 4 years together.
It was just her way of saying she resented my becoming ill. I got the message very clearly. I had for a long time. For more than two years, my ex had been increasingly abusive about the fact that I could hardly walk. Her need to abuse had destroyed the love and trust in our relationship.

She had spent weeks hiding in her room totaling every cent she could find a receipt for to come to that $100,000 figure.

She had long since abandoned the house, me, and her daughter in it. I suppose she thought that if she left her daughter alone with me there would be fights. There were none. The mother had tried for months to prove that I hated her daughter; but of course I didn't.
With the house free of her mother's unending insults and abuse, I saw no reason to blame the daughter for her mother's problems.
Despite the tensions, I made a point of being civil and polite to her daughter as she came and went. I went out of my way to make things as pleasant as possible in the household.

I'd even gone so far as to buy the daughter a birthday present. (Her birthday is in a few days.) Nothing overwhelming. Just something she would use and enjoy. Just something to make the point that there was no sense in perpetuating the atmosphere her mother had sewn in the house.
I placed the gifts quietly just inside the daughter's door, on a shelf, and made a point not to disturb anything else in the room. These were very tense and awkward times.

The mother made the point of making her threats just before Valentines Day, on the 12th.
She had only been an occasional visitor to the house for most of the previous two months. She stopped in to make her threats - really repeat the threats of her attorney - try to start an argument, then left usually unsatisfied because I had had enough of the senseless fighting.
Some of what she said was silly, some of it pure fantasy, but always with one purpose: to be as hurtful and insulting as the words and tone could be.

I spent these months in long panic attacks that lasted for days at a time. When I could find a moment or a place to relax, I collapsed into fitful, noisy sleep. I slept for days.

I sought people who could listen and understand, but there was no one. Neighbors became friends, then could only wonder at what sickness could drive one person to do this sort of thing to another. They came to the house with dinners, and invited me out to parties or their homes.
How do you explain what it is like - how exhausting it can be - to put on a relatively normal face, when your heart is at once ripped from your chest and exploding from it? I never found a good way. All I could do was pour out the abuse I had experienced for those long years.
The silliest part of it all is that I never abandoned hope that my ex would come to her senses, that she would appear with others and apologize. That never happened, of course.
She and her conspirators had set themselves on a course to take the house and all the possessions by lying to the courts.

It didn't matter that even she had admitted there were no grounds. It didn't matter that there was no evidence of any abuse on my part. In fact, there were not even complaints until she realized she could abuse the prejudices of the Australian courts.
In these months, between May and the next March, she and her family followed the advice of a lawyer.
No one was protected. No one needed protection. Nothing just, or fair, or decent was done. That was not their goal. Their goal was just to play a game for greed. Their plan was to abuse the Intervention Order process to dispossess me.

There is no place in the consciousness of Australian justice for a disabled man to be abused. The magistrates simply do not understand the words. The courts and all those who work with them do not understand the words.
A man, even an invalid, must always be the abuser in the warped mindset expressed by the idea of "err on the side of caution."

Every man learns that the world is not fair. He learns to accept its inequities. For everyone, I suppose, there is an inequity they cannot accept. For me, being treated like an animal because I was disabled was something I cannot accept. This sick minded treatment has become Australia to me.

Now, two years later, my mind will not let me forget that time. It sits in my head like an open scar. But the pain is improving. There was a time when just thinking about such things would make my eyes flow with tears and my body tremble. Now, there is just a deep abiding sadness within me - like a bad taste that will not go away.
Time heals all wounds, it's said.
I will be glad when the salve of time takes this one.
There are a few more horrible days to go.

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