MEDICAL FRAUD and the criminal assault of boys
"Straight Talk "
Although this commentary does not deal with male circumcision, it does provide great insight into inequalities which males face and what can be done to gain equality. As long as equality is not enforced by law - males will continue to be subjects of discrimination. Today there is a great force trying to prevent males from gaining equality and they will find every excuse to do so. This is particularly true when it pertains to child custody or circumcision.
Judge Ashamed
Commentary by George Jonas
Regina Leader Post
April 8, 2004
Toronto: Last week, a senior family court judge in Britain launched what the Daily Telegraph described as a "blistering attack" on the legal system for letting down divorced fathers whose ex-wives deny them access to their children.
"A wholly deserving father left my court in tears having been driven to abandon his battle for contact with his seven-year-old daughter," Mr. Justice James Munby was quoted as saying, adding that he felt "ashamed."
Munby’s reaction comes as no surprise. For years I’ve been getting letters from readers asking why we don’t enforce court orders regarding visitation rights as vigorously as we enforce court orders regarding child support.
One answer is that non-custodial parents are usually fathers, and fathers are men. Men can’t expect fair and equal treatment in matriarchy any more than women could have expected fair and equal treatment in a patriarchy before, and our society has gone from patriarchy to matriarchy with hardly a breath in between.
If you consider this answer exaggerated, here’s another.
Visitation rights are difficult to enforce. Many jurisdictions attempted it with little success. In Ontario, former attorney general Ian Scott gave it a valiant try some 15 years ago.
Scott’s heart was in the right place. Obviously, court orders should be enforced or the law becomes a joke. Also, for a parent to isolate a child from the other parent cannot be good for the child. The only exception would be an unfit parent who, presumably, wouldn’t get visitation rights anyway.
This is so self-evident that most divorced people, being otherwise normal and decent human beings, arrive at some voluntary agreement about custody, visiting, support and everything else. They need no court orders to begin with.
This isn’t to say that most couples arrive at such agreements EASILY.
Separation is a wrenching experience, and it’s natural for even the finest human beings to feel wounded during the process. It’s normal to fight and argue. What is neither normal nor decent is to get stuck in this state of mind forever. It’s neither normal nor decent to succumb to one’s pettiest emotions to the detriment of one’s children.
That’s why the law’s intervention is required mainly for parents, at least one of whom is below par in normalcy or decency.
This may be a harsh judgement, but it seems to me decent people get over their resentments in time. They work out support and visiting arrangements by themselves. Court orders, not to mention enforcement, are for those who verge on being unfit parents for the very reason that they require a judge’s order to do the right thing.
But how can such orders be enforced?
Normally a person who fails to comply with a court order will be fined or imprisoned for contempt, but judges have been reluctant to impose this type of penalty on a custodial parent who denies access to a non-custodial parent.
A token fine would be no deterrent, while a hefty fine or a jail sentence would punish the very children the law is trying to protect.
Scott’s remedies, in theory, would have enabled a judge to order the custodial parent to make up for visits denied in the past, or post a bond, or even pay the non-custodial parent’s costs for a wrongfully denied visit.
The trouble was, such bonds or costs came out of the children’s budget and could affect their welfare just as adversely as a fine. And if a custodial parent continued to defy the order, what could a judge do but impose a money penalty or jail?
Or forget about the whole thing, as before.
Munby would arrest parents who defy courts and continue to thwart contact.
I doubt if this would fly, but another remedy could be effective. A judge could say to the scoff-law parent, usually the mother: look, it’s good for children to have a relationship with their father. If you think he’s unfit to visit them, show me why. But if you can’t satisfy me that he’s unfit; if you’re keeping him away only as an act of resentment or hate, then I must conclude that YOU are the unfit parent and remove the children from your custody.
As long as we don’t take this step, some mothers will flout the law, and some fathers might respond by non-support or even kidnapping. In rare instances, there will be mayhem. Our choice is to tolerate such tragedies – or start speaking firmly with parents who understand no other language.