A few weeks ago the House of Commons Justice Committee produced its report into the Family Courts system. I couldn't see anything about the bias against men by Cafcass and the magistrates or the need to deal with systematic breach of contact orders.
Also recently the European Parliament shows that it takes fathers more seriously than the UK Parliament by launching the Platform for European Fathers. The UK were represented by the Fatherhood Institute and Mensaid.
Good luck to those involved.
Posted by Skimmington
282. Our evidence suggests that the primary aim of greater openness in the family courts is increased public confidence. Tim Loughton MP, the Children's Minister, summarised the concerns he had heard as follows:
Whether or not it is true, there is a perception that there is a bias in the courts. Various fathers' groups will tell you that it is a bias in favour of the resident parent, usually the mother. There are others who will tell you that there are incompetent or perhaps even malign social workers and other local authority people who have got it in for certain families and will therefore use whatever methods to extract a child from his or her family, with all that being brushed under the carpet, or that the judges are complicit in trying to conceal where justice is not really being done.[352]
283. Families Need Fathers told us:
The point of openness is to ensure that decisions are taken in the right way. By opening decisions to public scrutiny we don't want to identify children, vulnerable adults or their family. We do want the information to be available on how the decisions are decided [...]. The rules that prevent this in criminal cases involving children provide relevant experience on how to do this.[353]
284. The Newspaper Society told us: "The initiative towards greater openness arose from a background of increasing public lack of confidence in the operation of the family courts, particularly in public law cases."[354] The Press Association agreed "the culture of secrecy which has developed in the family courts over the years is counter-productive, particularly in relation to public confidence in family justice."[355] It suggested "the principle of open justice [should be] placed on a par with the idea that children involved in proceedings need to be protected from publicity."[356]
Sorry, no time for a longer comment, just thought I'd point this out.
Posted by: Jon | Thursday, 21 July 2011 at 08:42
I agree with Skimmingon's comment re "Europe"... Had it not been for the European Court of Justice would we now have "equality" for males for: Free NHS prescriptions; Bus passes & Winter Fuel Payments???
Posted by: JOHN TAYLOR | Thursday, 21 July 2011 at 21:13
Some time ago, I did need to buy a building for my corporation but I didn't have enough money and couldn't buy something. Thank heaven my fellow suggested to try to get the personal loans from reliable creditors. So, I did so and used to be satisfied with my commercial loan.
Posted by: HINTONSERENA | Saturday, 05 November 2011 at 19:44