How important is your child's happiness..?
So.
I'm in Court of Queen's Bench family and divorce chambers yesterday in Lethbridge.
And ahead of my matter is an application pitting a father acting on his own with the mother, who is represented by counsel.
The parents had been sharing custody of their daughter, who is 10 years old.
Both parents live in a small community, both live within a block or two of her school, and both appear to be very loving and capable parents.
But.
Here's the problem.
Dad has had his shifts change, and so, he has to leave for work at 6:30am, and doesn't get home until 5:00pm. As a result, mother applies to obtain primary care of the child, who was being left alone to get up and go to school, and was left at home alone after school until dad got home.
And here's the stupid thing. The father earns $87,000.00 per year.
And, yet, he shows up in court on his own, without a responding affidavit to the mothers suggestion that the child is being improperly attended to - and is asking the Judge for yet another adjournment (after being served with the mother's application and affidavit in mid-July, two months ago).
Long story short, the father lost shared custody of his daughter. And, likely, will never regain it.
This is Alberta's proud effort to assure "access to justice". Encouraging people to perform legal surgery on themselves.
This guy could easily have afforded the $2,000 or so to have a very qualified lawyer in court assisting him.
Better yet, the lawyer acting for the mother is someone I know who is very amenable to the collaborative practice approach, and I am very certain, were I counsel, we would have had these parents employ the assistance of a child expert and some parenting coaches to help them craft an arrangement that would have allowed the father to retain an integral position in his child's life.
Instead, yesterday, he became another weekend dad.
And here's something that's sort of interesting, in a tragic sort of way.
The Alberta government has fallen all over itself to dramatically change our Rules of Court, our Court Forms, our processes and procedures, to make it easier (to encourage) people to go to Court on their own without counsel.
The result has been an increase in litigation, which means an increase in cost to the tax-payer, which means an increase in unhappy people - like the dad in the case above - who learn the hard way about the shortcomings of the judicial system.
And - likely, this dad is going to be hurt and angry, and his relationship with the child's mother will be worse today than it was yesterday, which increases the chance of discord between them, which increases the chances of this little girl growing up dysfunctional - at yet more cost to the tax-payer to assist in children having children, or children not meeting their potential as they become adults.
A very real human cost and a financial cost to the tax-payer.
Yet.
At the same time.
When the Progressive Conservative Party held a policy conference a couple years ago, seeking input from it's members as to policies they would like the government to pursue, there was a proposal accepted by a majority vote of the members present to ask the government to support and assist in the promotion of Collaborative Law. A "grassroots" effort, if you will.
Reducing the human cost of divorce battles.
Reducing the cost to the tax-payer of attending to these fights, and reducing the collateral damage, the "fall out" from those battles - including increased costs to our criminal justice system, increased costs to our social service organizations, and increased costs of continued future litigation.
And Progressive Conservative leadership hopeful Allison Redford spoke to this writer on two occasions, suggesting her support fore the collaborative process.
But - at the end of the day - the Alberta government decided to go the other way, and has provided virtually no support or promotion of collaborative practice.
They decided it was better to encourage litigation, and to make it easier for people to go to Court and perform legal surgery on themselves and their families.
How's that working out?
Well, not so well for at least one father in court yesterday.
I think the problem is that many people, even those that are comfortably middle class, the costs of a lawyer is significant win or lose so it's worth a shot on his own. $2000 even for someone who makes $80K+ a year pre-taxes is not insignificant. Unfortunately for him he lost his gamble.
ReplyDeleteI suppose you're correct, it's not insignificant - however, at $87,000.00 per annum, it's affordable.
ReplyDeleteWould be have performed surgery on his daughter if he was told it would cost $2,000.00?
But, the bigger point is that putting the welfare of your child in the hands of an imperfect judicial system is a risk.. most people over-estimate their case, and under-estimate the lack of predictibility in the system.. better by far to make an effort, possibly with the assistance of a child expert, to negotiate a resolution to a problem.