NZ: Privacy and the Family Court
From http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2851629a6220,00.html
THE DOMINION POST
O P I N I O N S T O R Y
Privacy and the Family Court
22 March 2004
These angry men are well known to MPs, to Family Court judges and to newspaper editors. They are the wreckages of broken marriages, the fathers of children whose custody has not been determined in their favour by the New Zealand court system, writes the Dominion Post in an editorial.
They feel bruised by what they see as a secretive system that favours mothers, a system that, for some, is merely an extension of the feminist movement.
Their case is forcefully and publicly advanced by ACT NZ list MP Muriel Newman. Her arguments to those willing to listen are quite persuasive.
It is unlikely, however, that she will welcome a Law Commission report, released last week, that hints at more openness for proceedings in the Family Court but binds the idea with hefty constraints.
Among the 160 recommendations in the report on the broad justice system, Justice for All, are 15 relating to open justice in family, youth, criminal and civil proceedings.
In reinforcing the importance of conducting justice in an open court, the commission recommends that, for the first time, journalists be allowed to report family proceedings as of right. At the same time, it recommends that family proceedings that are currently closed to the public should remain closed and that judges retain the discretion to decide what, if anything, should be open to public scrutiny.
That won't satisfy Dr Newman or the irate fathers who have hitched themselves to her wagon. It already irritates National's families spokeswoman, Judith Collins, who argues that the prohibitions still in place will mean little amelioration of secrecy and accountability concerns. A lawyer, Ms Collins says that the recommendation to slacken the reins will limit reporting to proceedings that relate to property, wills and the incapacitated. She predicts, too, that the prohibitions on identifying witnesses or others connected with a case without court approval means there is unlikely to be reporting of Child, Youth and Family competence, parental bad behaviour or incompetence masquerading as cultural sensitivity.
At least as controversial as its Family Court recommendations is the commission's suggestion that no one charged with a criminal offence be identified ??? that is, named or described ??? till the substance of the case has gone to court. This idea is not new; a version of it was introduced briefly 30 years ago by the Kirk Labour government's attorney-general, Martyn Finlay. Such suppression is the complete reverse of what happens now, which is why, of course, some lawyers and policy wonks in the Justice Ministry like the idea. The disinfectant of sunlight is not universally popular.
The Clark government has undertaken to consider the proposals as well as community reaction, and then respond. The legal profession, the judiciary, fathers, groups and the news media will clearly want their tuppence worth.
Their opinions, as well as those of the court system's other users ??? crims, young people, too many Maori, business and separated families ??? should be actively sought, not passively awaited. After all, the Brash speech on race relations proved Labour was moving ahead of the public. Who knows? Justice Minister Phil Goff might just decide to heed the thrust of its views more closely than Cabinet did opinion on the Privy Council and prostitution law reform.
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