A sigh for the Family Court
A lot of cases from the Family Court of Australia come my way at work. Most of the them are just plain sad - sad primarily because the relationships have soured to such a point and the Court is needed to make decisions relating to the care of the children and the like. Today I read a judgment in which the judges first wearied paragraph is this:
This appeal involves features typical of a great many applications that assert contravention of an order that a child spend time with a parent: the complaint, even if correct, seems a heavy handed, even obssessive reaction - yet, if the incident is the latest in a series (about which there will commonly be mainly subjective comment, irrelevant to the particular proceeding) perhaps any exasperation of the complainant is at least understandable; secondly, the "excuse" offered by the respondent will seem "fair enough", at least not to be behaviour that ought attract punishment; and finally, whatever the outcome, it will seem unlikely to contribute to any real diminution of the particular family's conflict.
Warnick J
Yes, indeed. I wish they'd just all go home and be loving and reasonable.