Bullies in the Family Court

By Michael Knight

Saturday 21 November 2009

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It's funny how society pro-actively attempts to stamp out bullies in the school ground and generally in life, yet there is one place where bullying is particularly rife and acceptable.

Yes, you guessed it, the Family Court.

The definition of a bully is "a person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people". This definition could also be varied to include a person who is abused and unfairly taken advantage of for just wanting to be a good parent, by either one or more persons legal or otherwise.

Now with this definition and amendment in mind we can easily apply that to various people who frequent the legal system and Family Court establishment, or the "anti-family court" as some call it.

Now who are the bullies?

Well it's certain types of parents, lawyers and the judiciary process on certain occasions.

It usually starts with a parent, often a vengeful Applicant, who has lots of money or family assets to play with, or should I say waste.

This money often translates into power exerted by a lawyer in a court, often resulting in the Applicant getting much of what they want most of the time from the bench, in the way of Orders, sanctions, intimidation and/or belittling of the other parent.

The trouble is you have this "bullying" type force knocking the recipient parent for a six, with often this parent hardly doing a thing wrong, if anything at all. The after effects can be substantial causing this parent all forms of physical and psychological problems for many months, if not years.

What's even more disturbing is the disruption and degradation of this parent's ability to parent. The children are deprived of an intellectually and/or emotionally present parent and are one step closer to financial poverty. This all seems to fly in the face of what's really in the "Best Interest's of the Children". Read a previous article called What is REALLY in the best interests of your children?

I wonder whether founder of the Family Court of Australia Lionel Murphy, and the authors of "The Best Interests of the Child: The Least Detrimental Alternative" intended and/or anticipated such a negative and damaging effect upon innocent parents and children?

If not, a terrible twist of fate has indeed occurred.

With love, kindness and peace
Michael