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Is The New Zealand Government really tyrannical ?
I was very interested to read the following article that I found lately while just surfing around on the net.
The following article was published in The Washington Times on 29/09/2000
Paul Craig Roberts identifies the relationship between our universities ???politically correct?????? And those of previous ideologies. He is right on target. His article appeared in The Washington Times (September 29, 2000).
"Tyranny is creeping up on us. If you don???t believe it, consider the most prominent hallmarks of the Nazi and communist regimes, which sought to supplant democracy in the 20th century.
"In National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union, there were no First Amendment rights. No one could voice an opinion contrary to the politically correct views enforced by the Gestapo and the KGB. Media and education were used to instill politically correct thinking and bring denunciation upon anyone who departed from politically correct thinking.
"This is precisely the situation that exists today in the vast majority of American colleges and universities. Verbal and facial expressions that are contrary to political correctness result in sensitivity training (a form of brainwashing) or expulsion for the offender, who may have done nothing more than laugh. If the source of mirth is an ethnic joke, a blonde joke or a hilarious claim by a multiculturalist, the hapless offender discovers that his constitutional protections do not exist.
"In Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, there were victim groups that were championed and oppressor groups that were suppressed. In Germany, the ???victims??? were Aryans, who were said to be under the financial hegemony of Jews. In the Soviet Union, the hegemonic group was the bourgeoisie, who allegedly held sway over an oppressed proletariat. In both countries, victims were permitted to exercise violent language and actions against oppressors.
"In the United States today, white heterosexual able-bodied males constitute the hegemonic group. Everyone else is a member of a victim group.
"In Germany and the Soviet Union, the abstract and imaginary group roles of oppressor and victim were given a frightful reality by ideologues. Race and class categories became the basis for discrimination and new legal systems that favored victims??? groups with preferences.
"On American campuses, multi-cultural ideology has revived the concepts of race and class oppression, and added new ones based on gender and sexual orientation. Men oppress women, and heterosexuals oppress homosexuals.
"According to multiculturalists, our culture and values reflect nothing but the arbitrary domination of society by white heterosexual males. University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Kors says that, thanks to multiculturalism, ???half a century after the defeat of Nazism, we distinguish by blood and we equate blood with culture.??? We now think like Nazis and explain our society and culture in terms of race (and gender) hegemony.
"Tyrannical states attack the family. Both the Nazis and communists are infamous for state intrusions in family affairs. In the United States, similar bureaucratic and political intrusions come from family courts. Most Americans are unaware of the existence of these relatively new ???courts.??? Howard University Professor Stephen Baskerville is the leading authority on these courts. He says family courts are ???the most dangerous institutions posing a threat to constitutional rights in our society. The only parallels are the ideological-bureaucratic dictatorships of the last century.???
"Family courts claim immunity from the Constitution and from scrutiny by federal courts. Mr. Baskerville describes them as follows: ???their proceedings are secret and unrecorded. Their orders are enforced by bureaucratic police who do not wear uniforms and whose sole responsibility is to conduct surveillance over families and private lives. As such, these police are akin to secret police. By the very nature of their jurisdiction, these courts and police are the most intrusive and invasive arm of government, and yet they are accountable to virtually no one. Such an institution is intolerable in a free society.???
"Recently a family court judge ordered the parents of a 7-year-old boy in Berne, N.Y., to put their child on Ritalin, a behavior-control drug. The alternative was to be found guilty of ???educational neglect,??? an offense that would open the possibility of their child being seized by Child Protective Services ??? a Hillary Clinton ???village??? institution straight from the pages of the Gestapo. The child suffered serious side effects from the drug, but parents no longer have the right to decide what is best for their children. "Tyrannical states assault the individual in the inner recesses of his consciousness. He is not permitted to think certain thoughts or to express a prohibited thought privately to anyone. "Recently, Janice Barton encountered a Spanish-speaking couple while leaving a restaurant in Manistee, Mich. She turned to her mother and said, ???I wish these [ethnic slur] would learn to speak English.??? An off- duty deputy sheriff over-heard the private remark, followed the woman to her car and noted her tag number. Janice Barton was sentenced to 45 days in jail for her thought crime.
"This couldn???t happen in a free country."
----------------------------------------...
It has raised some very valid points, which needs to be discussed. It made me think of a few questions that I feel needs to be addressed.
Can & does the same sort of thing happen in New Zealand? If it does how wide spread is it?
How many lives and families are being destroyed by such a push by the New Zealand???s Government to bring about social change & equality by " FORCE " & " COERCION ????
What part do the many varied social groups (eg Women???s refuge etc) have in this process of change to our society?
What part does the Family Court and Justice system have to play in especially the matter of Family & Domestic violence, Child Abuse & in general the destruction of the family unit?
Just the thought of this sort of abuse of power in New Zealand by the people who are in position of power (eg MP???s, Judges, Police etc) is quite disgusting to say the least and should not be tolerated any longer.
You cannot bring about such changes by the misuse of power to control how people think & react with the use of FORCE & COERCION. In reality a big power struggle to which the strongest wins there is always a loser
Where is the equality that it trys so hard to obtain when they use power and control to bring it about?
I suggest to you that Equality in this sense doesn't in reality exist.
It all just seems to be people in these positions of power wanting to make up in their own twisted perception what they perceive is the best for everyone and then by whatever means available to then force people by the use of FORCE & COERCION to get what they want.
Is New Zealand going down this path to destruction?
I really hope that reading this doesn't destroy the rest of your day
Have a nice day :-)
Thanks
Pgbanews
END
From Wayne Hawkins
Greetings Fellow Masculists
The Convoy for Child Support Reform has had a great first day.
The first signature for the petition was gathered before 8am this morning in the car park of the Tikipunga tavern and the signatory was a woman.
We had similar experiences as we travelled through the suburbs of Auckland today gathering signatures from men but also many women.
At times during the day we had as many as 20 vehicles in the Convoy
This is a cause that deserves your support and needs you to support it if we're going to effect any real change
Tomorrow morning the Convoy leaves Auckland to move South.
The assembly point is Caltex Fanshawe Street - be there at 7.30am
The Convoy then leaves for the Manukau Shopping Centre to gather more signatures for the petition
The rest of the schedule is listed below
Monday 29 March
Auckland - Hamilton - Tauranga (over night)
Tuesday 30 March
Tauranga - Rotorua - Taupo - Palmerston North
(over night)
Wednesday 31 March
Palmerston North - Parliament - IRD Shirt off OUR Backs Protest
Traks Social/ Railway Station
MEN ARE ON THE MOVE
Come and join us
Look for Jimmy Bagnall's big white bus.
It will have Union of Fathers and Men's Convoy signage all over it.
You are invited to follow the bus with your lights on.
Look out for controllers who will give you signs to tape on the inside of the rear window of your vehicle and petition sheets to gather signatures on.
MEN ARE ON THE MOVE FOR
CHILD SUPPORT REFORM
For further information ring 021 452 628
END
From http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,9086760%255E2862,00.html
Judge attacks blow to rights
Wayne Howell
27mar04
CUTTING families' access to lawyers could greatly harm children, the retiring chief judge of the Family Court said last night.
Chief Justice Alastair Nicholson said Federal Government plans for lawyer-free mediation smacked of a totalitarian regime.
The chief judge used a national video link-up marking his retirement to lambast the Federal Government.
Justice Nicholson has been renowned for his outspokenness in the 16 years he has headed the Family Court.
"I must say I regard the current proposal to limit the availability of lawyers before a body such as the proposed Families Tribunal as a serious attack on the civil liberties of Australians, smacking more of totalitarian regimes than of a democracy," Justice Nicholson said.
He told a ceremonial sitting including live video link-ups with 19 courts around the country that lawyers were vital to settling many highly charged, emotional family disputes.
"When they (lawyers) are absent, as is often the case these days, the process often breaks down into rancour and bitterness, often at the expense of the parties' children," he said.
Sitting with 21 Family Court judges, New Zealand Family Court Chief Justice Patrick Mahony and Victorian Supreme Court Chief Justice Marilyn Warren, Justice Nicholson was praised as a fearless defender of his court and of children's legal rights.
The head of the Australian Bar Association, Ian Harrison, QC, said Chief Justice Nicholson's battles with attorneys-general was his badge of honour.
Not long after federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock praised the stability he brought to the court, Justice Nicholson said he did not regret responding to unfair attacks by politicians or the media on judges.
"This has become a more important role as attorneys-general have become less prepared to undertake their traditional role of the defence of the courts," he said.
Appointed in 1988, Justice Nicholson, 65, was only the second chief judge of the Australian Family Court.
END
From http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/26/1079939845373.html
All about the children
March 27, 2004
The departing head of the Family Court agrees it needs a new direction - but not the one the Government has in mind. Margaret Simons talks to Alastair Nicholson.
It must have been an extraordinary meeting. On the one hand Philip Ruddock, the pallid and wintry Christian Attorney-General. On the other, Chief Justice Alastair Nicholson, apple-cheeked and snowy-haired, one of Ruddock's most fiery critics and one of our most controversial judges.
The encounter took place a few weeks ago. It was their first and probably last extensive conversation. What was it like? Nicholson gives one of his wry smiles. Ruddock was, he says, "courteous" and listened "cautiously and with interest". But he gave no indication of his plans for the court after Nicholson's departure. Nicholson notes that Ruddock agreed to speak at his farewell function, then jokes, "Perhaps he wants to make sure that I have gone."
Nicholson retires this week after 16 years as head of the Family Court, but even among the champion gossips of the legal profession there is no hint of who might replace him. Ruddock is keeping his cards close to his chest but the signs are that the Howard Government plans major changes to family law. Ruddock has nominated it as a field he intends to reform, and the Prime Minister has this week briefed backbenchers that it is an area he will use to seize the political agenda back from Mark Latham.
With Nicholson gone the court will have lost its chief defender while the vocal men's groups, who are the court's chief critics, have the ear of Government. Some even talk about the end of the Family Court.
Nicholson has spoken out on the Government's treatment of asylum seekers, the rights of children and the impact of economic rationalism on families. He has appeared the more extraordinary as the society around him has grown more conservative.
Now, after 16 years, he is ending his career with what some see as an admission of defeat. He says the adversarial system is not working. It fails families, and in particular the children caught up in family breakdown. Change is needed. But what change? And who, if anyone, will replace him? He is going on leave for three months, so his post does not officially fall vacant until July, giving the Government plenty of time to prepare.
NICHOLSON is leaving the court at the most sensitive time since it was established in 1975. Set up by the Whitlam government at a time of great reforming optimism, it was to preside over a system in which, for the first time, those who wanted a divorce did not have to wrangle over who was at fault.
Nicholson was appointed in 1988 by the Labor attorney-general, Lionel Bowen, who says he chose him because of his understanding of human behaviour. Already the optimism about family law had been dented by fierce controversy and bomb attacks on court judges. It was clear the Family Court had become and would remain the nation's most difficult jurisdiction.
Since then Nicholson has fallen out with governments of both political colours, and is probably the most loved and hated judge in the country. A search of the internet turns up extraordinary vitriol from radical men's groups. More moderate groups talk about him being "snowed by feminists".
But enemies and friends talk about his compassion for families, and children in particular. His time at the court has been characterised by a concern about family violence, and a determination to make the court's services accessible to the disadvantaged, including remote indigenous communities.
Nicholson announced his retirement date more than 20 months ago, but friends believe that if he could have foreseen the circumstances of the court today, he might have decided not to go.
Late last year, a parliamentary committee investigating child custody disputes recommended a new family tribunal to run without any lawyers. The recommendation, which is before cabinet, is believed to have Ruddock's support but opposed by the legal profession and by Nicholson, who describes it as "woolly and not well thought through". The committee recommended that only the most difficult disputes, including those involving allegations of violence and child abuse, should go before the Family Court.
Nicholson says he is not sure where the concept of a tribunal "fitted in", given that it was already the case that only about 6 per cent of the most difficult cases went before a judge. Preventing people from being represented by lawyers would disenfranchise those who lacked bargaining power.
There are also difficulties under the constitution that he doubts could be overcome. "Telling someone they can't have a lawyer sounds great if you have some view that lawyers are essentially evil, but if you are in a difficult emotional battle with someone else you actually want someone on your side," he says. But Nicholson and his critics agree that adversarial justice enshrines conflict, and damages children. Change is needed.
One of his last acts has been to create a pilot scheme based on the European system of inquisitorial justice, in which lawyers still represent the parties but judges have greater control over how cases are run, including what evidence is heard. Judges can switch to a mediation role if they think that is useful.
The aim is to reach agreements more quickly and get rid of the huge affidavits about who did what to whom 15 years ago, and whose fault it was that the children got sunburnt.
"I don't know what my successor will make of it," Nicholson says of the pilot scheme. It is being comprehensively monitored. He hopes it is at least given a chance to work.
He rejects suggestions that his criticism of the adversarial system, over which he has presided for so many years, is an admission of defeat. "I think it's just part of a change mechanism. The law ought to evolve." He stresses that his problem is with the adversarial system, rather than with the Family Law Act. Previous reviews have "tinkered" with the law, and fixed little.
His diminishing faith in adversarial justice is partly the result of cuts to legal aid, meaning that many people come before the court without a lawyer to help them. "The whole concept ... of the adversarial system is dependent on both sides having skilled legal representation. That way there is a reasonable chance of some just result emerging."
But legal aid is not the only issue. The present system prolongs and runs on conflict, when studies suggest that it is conflict, rather than separation, that harms children.
"Litigation is driven by the attitudes of the parties, and in family law the attitudes of the parties are often not very reasonable," he says. "I became somewhat tired over the years presiding over disputes in which people really were not getting to the point, and spending a lot of money on counsel arguing over issues which really weren't going to affect me in terms of the result."
He now believes the original vision in which the court was founded was partly wrong. "It was a good thing to do to get rid of fault, but I don't think anyone realised that the fights don't lie in the grounds, although they might have appeared to do so. The fights are always going to be about the children and property."
Nevertheless, he sees no cause for regret about the establishment of easy, no-fault divorce. The old system was pointless and the process was humiliating.
IN PERSON, Nicholson is genial, and quick to talk about issues. He never fails to answer a question directly and with a candour unusual in public life. But he is slow to delve into the personal, and seems almost puzzled when asked about the effect on him of his work - all the pain, love and hate he has seen.
He has no regrets about the judgements he has made: "Everyone makes wrong decisions. But I've done them all to the best of my ability." He sleeps well, but takes with him into retirement vivid memories of families torn by conflict, and suffering children.
The people who have impressed him most have been relatives and friends who have intervened in disputes out of genuine love for the children. The main thing he has learnt, he says, is that family dynamics are a mystery.
Last year he and the other judges of the Full Court upheld the validity of a marriage between a woman and a transsexual man who was born a woman, and rejected an appeal by the Attorney-General against the marriage's validity. It was a case that went to the heart of our notions of gender, marriage and family.
Although Nicholson was married 40 years ago in a Presbyterian church, today his views are secular, intellectual and pragmatic.
He describes himself as not an atheist, but not really a Christian. Marriage, he says, is about commitment, and companionship - and nothing more. It is not set in stone and it is not sacred.
He supports legislation allowing for same-sex marriage. "I think we are all very prissy about those things." There is no evidence, he says, that the children of same-sex couples suffer.
Nicholson counts among the chief misfortunes of his public life that it has taken place in a time when idealism has been in retreat. His departure represents the breaking of a link with the reforming optimism of the court's early days, and the time when it was possible to believe that, freed from restrictive laws, people would come together, love and part in civilised dignity.
The future will start from a sadder set of assumptions.
A life in the law
Born August 19, 1938. Brought up on his parents' coffee plantation in Papua New Guinea. Educated as a boarder at Scotch College and University of Melbourne.
1961 Admitted to practise law.
1963 Joined the Victorian Bar.
1972 Stood unsuccessfully as the ALP candidate for the federal seat of Chisholm.
1979 Made a QC.
1981-82 Chaired board of inquiry into corruption on Richmond City Council.
1982-88 Appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria.
1988 Appointed Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia.
1992 Made an Officer of the Order of Australia.
July 2002 Announces intention to retire in March 2004.
END
From http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=38041
Act promotes Family Court bill
Act MP Dr Muriel Newman urges Govt to move on private member's bill to open up Family Court proceedings
27 March 2004
The Act party says any changes to the Family Court are up to Labour.
The statement comes in reaction to Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier's comments that the time has come to remove the secrecy surrounding the Family Court.
Act's Social Welfare spokeswoman Dr Muriel Newman says a Labour government voted down her last attempt to change the legislation in 2001.
She says changes to the secret society of the Family Court will again fall to Labour to implement.
Dr Newman hopes the Government is listening to public feeling and sees the bill as the right vehicle to push forward change.
She says it is an unwise government that fails to go along with the mood of the public.
Dr Muriel Newman says the bill should be before parliament by the middle of the year.
National MP Nick Smith was found guilty of contempt of court earlier this week for speaking publicly on a Family Court case.
?? 2004 NZCity, IRN
END
From http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=38055&cat=1005
CYF against opening up Family Court
Child Youth and Family not welcoming calls for secrecy surrounding Family Court proceedings to be removed
27 March 2004
Calls to remove the secrecy surrounding the Family Court are not being welcomed by Child Youth and Family.
Principal Family Court judge Peter Boshier has said it is time to make the Family Court more accessible to the media and wider family members.
CYF spokeswoman Shannon Pakura says the custody and the guardianship of children and their circumstances need to be protected.
She says consideration needs to be given to whether details of cases have to be put in the public arena.
Ms Pakura says the Family Court deals with vulnerable children, and CYF aims to ensure these children are not disadvantaged.
?? 2004 NZCity, IRN
END
27 March 2004
Closed courts hurt children
???MEN???S CONVOY 2004 strongly advocates that the festering sore of a closed Family Court be opened to expose the real effect on our children of its underlying ideology,??? MEN???S CONVOY 2004 convenor, Jim Nicolle said today. ???While this will not cure the ills of family law in New Zealand, it will reveal where much of the problem lies???.
???Family Court Decisions on child support cases are causing immense financial hardship to parents, so that they are unable to afford to maintain their relationship with their children. It is not child support when parents can no longer be parents.???
???MEN???S CONVOY 2004 - Men on the Move for Child Support Reform will leave Queen Street Auckland at 8:00 am on 29 March and will travel throughout the North Island to arrive in Wellington on 31 March, concluding at 2:30 pm in Parliament grounds. It will draw attention to the injustices of the child support system and will collect signatures for a petition calling for radical reform of the Child Support Act 1991.It also will collect ???shirts off backs??? from parents to deliver to Inland Revenue.???
???We are not against paying child support; we just want the system to be fair and reasonable. Inland Revenue say it???s their job to be fair. We want to hold them to their word???, concluded Nicolle.
ENDS
From http://www.peterellis.org.nz/FamilyCourt/2004-0318_Scoop_MoreVoice.htm
Scoop
March 18, 2004
More voice for children needed in Family Court
Press Release: Commissioner For Children
The Office of the Children??s Commission is calling for children to have a more active voice in Family Court proceedings.
Children??s Commissioner Dr Cindy Kiro told a gathering of the Family Courts (Auckland) Association in Auckland tonight that children are frequently absent and silent in Family Court decisions about their future. ??
Children have no right of appeal if they are unhappy with the court??s decision.??
Legal advocate for the Office of the Children??s Commissioner Mereana Ruri says some judges and Counsel for the Child are doing a good job of ensuring children are active participants in Family Court proceedings but systems need to be put in place to ensure a consistent standard of excellence throughout the country.
In some cases Counsel for the Child, who are appointed by the court, do not talk to the children involved in custody disputes, Ms Ruri says. She points out some very young children are well able to put forward their views and that Family Court professionals need to learn to communicate with children of all ages to assess their capacity for involvement with the court process. ??
While Counsel for the Child cannot be expected to be child development experts, more training is needed to ensure Family Court professionals have knowledge about the emotional, social and cultural needs of their clients.??
The office is also calling for caution over the Law Commission??s recommendations to allow media more access to Family Court proceedings. She says the interests of the child must remain paramount.
??We also need to take into account the reality that New Zealand is a small village. Families, particularly in small communities, could be easy to identify even if the judge rules that identifiable details about a family cannot be released.??
Dr Kiro points out most parents and caregivers make good arrangements for children during separations and only a small number of cases end up in the Family Court. However she says there is evidence that children do not understand the process or know what is going on when cases enter the adversarial Family Court system.
??I believe children need to be fully informed and that children??s voices should be heard at every stage of the process.??
Dr Kiro says the Law Commission has also recommended that decisions about Maori children should only be made after consideration of the role of the whanau.
END
From http://www.peterellis.org.nz/FamilyCourt/2004-0323_ODT_CourtingChange.htm
Otago Daily Times
March 23, 2004
Courting change
Editorial
If our courts system was any other kind of business, it would have been re-evaluated and overhauled well before now, such is its inadequacy. The Law Commission's comprehensive review with far-reaching recommendations, presented to Parliament last week, contains many worthy suggestions, but it also presents the Government with a mighty legal headache at a time when it is already under political duress.
For although the review addresses the telling shortcomings of our court structure - the fact it is overloaded, expensive, slow and alienating - the commission's proposed restructuring has not yet been costed in detail. That is the task of a Ministry of Justice team which is due to have some idea of the proposed restructuring's cost within six months, when the Government is scheduled to give its response to the commission's 160 recommendations. But already, the list of recommendations has been enough to provoke Justice Minister Phil Goff into describing them as "costly". While taxpayers will surely be pleased to learn of the Minister's continuing caution with their money, it should be remembered the present court structure, described by Law Commission president Justice Robertson as at times little better than a "cattle market", carries a cost too - for the thousands of people who use it, voluntarily or involuntarily, in one way or another. It is at its worst at district court level, where, the commission says, the court structure is least efficient, most costly and least effective.
In the biggest review of our court system since magistrate's courts were replaced by district courts almost 25 years ago, the commission says it has been clear from consultation and submissions that district courts are overloaded, the breadth of their jurisdiction and caseload growing beyond anything envisaged when they were set up in 1980. The commission's restructuring plan is comprehensive - from establishing a state agency overseeing the provision of legal advice to restructuring the workload of the Court of Appeal. It recommends replacing the district courts with a community court, which it describes as "the gateway for the local community to the justice system". As the main court of nine primary courts, it would have the highest workload, dealing with less serious criminal and civil cases. Its successful introduction at the base of a much more streamlined and logical court structure would depend, however, on a change of court practice and a change in culture throughout the courts system, including from police, court staff and lawyers - and changes in legislation. Among the suggestions aimed at turning around the alienation felt by many using the courts are new court liaison groups, a national advisory group to help establish community courts and wide community consultation, including with Maori leadership.
Undoubtedly, the proposed court structure would be more easily understood by the public, progressing logically from primary courts to the High Court (for more serious offences), Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. But there is some detail in the commission's report, called "Delivering Justice For All", that will not please everyone. We applaud the proposal to lift the threshold for the right to jury trial to offences liable to a five-year prison term or more. The present three-month threshold is ridiculous and a totally unnecessary privilege which slows the administration of justice. It is in line with moves overseas and would more properly reflect society's view of what is serious crime. Nevertheless, it is still likely to be contentious. Similarly, lifting of some reporting restrictions on Family Court and Youth Court proceedings would be hotly debated, and media interests will point out a myriad of problems with a recommendation to extend name suppression for people charged until "the substance of the case" is heard before a court.
The overall thrust of the report, however, is likely to be widely welcomed. Who could argue with wanting a more open, inclusive and user-friendly courts system? Who could object to the State having responsibility for ensuring public access to information and legal advice? These proposals would affect far more people than has replacement of the Privy Council with the Supreme Court. Implementing change to this extent, however, requires the kind of large political and financial commitment that, sadly, has been rare. This report draws in previous Law Commission recommendations that have been gathering dust and puts them into an all-encompassing context. How welcome it would be if, after an appropriate period of study and debate, there was enough political will to crank the wheels of justice into action.
END
From http://www.peterellis.org.nz/FamilyCourt/2004-0327_NZHerald_RoyalCommission.htm
NZ Herald
March 27, 2004
Royal commission behind setup
by Phil Taylor
The institution criticised by Nick Smith for its secrecy began hearing family matters in private because of a royal commission.
The Family Court was set up in 1980 at the recommendation of a Royal Commission on the Courts, which was critical of the unnecessarily open way sensitive and emotional disputes, particularly involving children, was handled.
It was proposed a court be started that was informal and private in nature.
Since then, it has grown to the point where there are now 39 Family Court judges hearing about 11,000 cases a year.
One of Dr Smith's criticisms was of case backlogs. Statistics show that as at May last year, the longest delay was 46 weeks for a case in Levin.
The Auckland region (Auckland, 43; Pukekohe, 41; North Shore, 31; Papakura, 26) and Wellington (40 weeks) otherwise had the longest waits.
The court's caseload has more than doubled in the past 12 years, with 65,810 new cases filed in the year to June 2003.
Much of this increase has occurred in the past five years but only three more judges have been added during that period.
Legal aid spending on Family Court cases had decreased in recent years after the rising legal aid bill became a prominent issue. Family Court legal aid peaked in 1999 at $39m but last year it was down to $27.2m.
The largest sum paid for a single case in the past 10 years was $104,000. In 72 per cent of Family Court legal aid cases the recipient is female.
Last week, in a shift from what was recommended by the Royal Commission in 1980, the Law Commission recommended the media be allowed to attend the court and, subject to certain restrictions, report proceedings.
END
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