By Peter Ehrlich
Gloria Steinem once said, "The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off."
I know I've just pissed off some single dads who on more than one occasion have written me to tell me that it's "the feminists" who are responsible for their custody woes.
I never know what that means. You might as well say, "my mom bakes the best apple pie, but her elephant's muffler is about to go."
How does sexual equality have anything to do with the family court system? One notion that cannot be dismissed outright is the belief that courts and judges are gender-biased; that the system too often sides with single moms.
Are judges gender-biased? I decided to pose this question to two of them, both men.
Justice Harvey Brownstone of the Ontario Court of Justice sits at North York family court. He's been a family court judge for 13 years.
"We're not in the vengeance business," he told me "We are in the justice business and all we're concerned about is the best interests of the child. All judges have to take that approach. Parents have no rights; children have rights. Parents have obligations."
The problem with the family court system, according to Brownstone, is not that it's gender-biased, but that the system is ill-equipped to handle the complex psychological nuances associated with single-parent issues.
"Judges are not psychologists," he says. "People need counselling, need to learn how to communicate in a child-focused way. You've got to love your child more than you dislike your ex-partner. Your children need peace more than you need to be right."
And the criminal court system?
Harvey Salem has been a judge in that system for 17 years. "There is no gender bias," he states. " If a man calls the police and reports that he's been assaulted by his ex-wife, she will be arrested. Politicians have taken away discretion from police and crown attorneys."
He adds, "I only ever convicted 10 per cent of my cases."
Salem didn't look to convict the men who make up 98 per cent of all domestic assault cases. Rather, what he wanted was to "hear the accused apologize, and agree to go in for treatment."
If the perpetrator said those words to Salem, the charges were often dropped and he (or she) had no criminal record.
Here again, the implication is that the best interest of the child is paramount and having a father in jail is not in the child's best interest. If there is a bias, it is towards the rehabilitation of the accused.
Not all judges take that approach. There are kooks in every stratum of society, including the judicial community and that's another reason single parents need a good lawyer. They know who the kooks are.
Both Brownstone and Salem said the same thing: gender bias does not rule the court system; the best interest of the child does.
In the years I spent negotiating with my son's mother over access to our son at the Jarvis St. court house, (the late) Justice Lynn King never rejected any reasonable request I put forward.
I can understand if this column has pissed you off, but maybe it will set you free to do what you should be doing: reinventing your relationship with your ex while putting together a workable plan without using the court system.
It's in your children's interest to have a dad who is focused on their happiness, rather than (on the perception) that you got screwed.[Back To My Writing]
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