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January 13, 2005

Ireland

Single fathers' rights.

Appraisal of custody law long overdue

	AN initiative mooted by Social and Family Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan should provoke a critical appraisal into the outmoded notion that only a woman is suitable to have custody of children in cases where there was no marriage or a broken partnership.
	Although the ultimate responsibility to change the relevant legislation lies with Justice Minister Michael McDowell, Mr Brennan has quite rightly brought a focus on an area of family law which is in need of rehabilitation.
	What he has prompted in an interview with the Irish Examiner is the concept of equal rights for single fathers, which single mothers already have enshrined for them under the 1964 Guardianship of Infants Act.
	He has applied an unjaundiced eye to an area of legislation which has been responsible for untold heartbreak and injustice because it was grounded on a premise which was prejudicial against single fathers.
	Mr Brennan is right in his assertion that there should not be an automatic assumption in court cases that the mother is the only parent fully entitled to care for a child.
	In the decades since the emergence of the Guardianship of Infants Act, society has changed dramatically and so has the perceived role of men, especially that of single fathers.
	There are, of course, men who are indifferent to the care and welfare of their children, but it would appear that the majority of the country's estimated 150,000 separated and single fathers want a role, and a meaningful one, in the rearing of their children.
	The minister has sought the views of concerned family support organisations and has committed to a full review of current Government policy, and to that end an inter-departmental report on how best to provide family support will be published early this year.
	One aspect which he has been urged to pursue is the ending of the in-camera rule, whereby family law cases are considered by a court in private.
	While it is a question for his colleague in Justice, Mr Brennan is correct to oppose such a move.
	There is enough trauma involved when people's lives are scrutinised under family law, especially for children, without it being added to by the intrusion of an open court.
	Mr Brennan has knocked on a door which can only be opened by Justice Minister McDowell, but it is one which needs to be opened if this gross injustice is to be excised from our family law.

January 4, 2005 Italy

When the separated parents of a 5-year-old Italian boy could not agree whose house he should stay at over Christmas, a judge settled the dispute by tossing a coin, an Italian newspaper reported Thursday.

	The squabbling couple took the argument to a family disputes court a few days before Christmas and was surprised when the judge, who said there was not enough time to convene the tribunal, tossed a two-euro coin for “heads-or-tails.”
	“I did it in the interest of the child,” Judge Carlo Alberto Agnoli was quoted as saying in Italy’s leading daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.
	“I certainly couldn’t do like Solomon and divide the child. So I trusted to luck,” said the judge who presides at a court in the northeastern town of Trento.
	He was referring to the biblical King Solomom who threatened to cut a boy in half when two women claimed he was theirs, thus learning who was the true mother when she begged him not to.
	The mother, who usually has custody of the boy, won the toss and the boy spent Christmas with her, the paper said. (Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)

February 2, 2005

Gay father seeks to lift restrictions in child custody case

	A gay father says through his lawyer that the Virginia court ruling that forced his partner to move out while he was raising his son has been negative for the child.
	The Court of Special Appeals in Annapolis was told today that the court order has been very upsetting to the child and that he wants his fathers partner to be able to move back in.
	The order came out of a custody battle with the child's mother when Ulf Hedberg and his partner lived in Virginia. They have since moved to Maryland.
	Homosexual rights organizations have been supporting Hedbergs lawsuit. Susan Sommer with Lamda Legal says the child's world was turned upside-down by a knee-jerk, anti-gay custody restriction issued by a judge in Alexandria, Virginia.
	The child's mother opposes changing the court order.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. U.S.A.

Fathers' Rights Suffer Setback

Are German fathers getting a raw deal?

January 13, 2005

	German politicians seeking to outlaw secret paternity tests won a first battle on Wednesday, much to the disappointment of fathers' rights groups hoping for greater justice in the areas of alimony and child support.
	The German Federal Court of Justice decided on Wednesday that paternity tests carried out in secret are inadmissible as evidence in a lawsuit. Unless the mother gave her consent for the test, the child's personal rights would be violated, the court in Karlsruhe ruled.
	The decision was welcomed by German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, who is leading a campaign to make secret paternity tests illegal under a new law regulating the use of genetic data.
	"These tests are a serious invasion of the private sphere," Zypries said. "If a man has doubts about his paternity, he should talk about this with the mother."
	Campaigners for fathers' rights in Germany say making secret paternity tests punishable would be yet another blow to men who already get the short end of the stick when it comes to laws regulating alimony, child support, and child custody following a divorce or separation.
	"It cannot be that, as a woman, I have the right to make my husband pay to support a child that is not his own, or to deny children the right to know who their real father is," said Dr. Karin Jäckel, an active supporter of the fathers' rights movement and author of several books on the subject.
	"Men are, in every respect, held responsible for their children under our laws, which is why they have the right to know who their children are."
	Modernizing alimony
	While the battle over paternity tests continues, Justice Minister Zypries has also announced an overhaul of German laws on alimony. Divorced dads are hopeful that the changes will mean more justice for them.
	The growing fathers' rights movement in Germany rejects the stereotype of the heartless man who abandons his family for a new relationship. In reality, they say, the situation is very different. Women file for divorce more frequently than men, and are more often awarded custody of the children.
	And in cases where a divorce is contested, fathers frequently become estranged from their children, making it harder for fathers to gain custody rights once the divorce is settled, Jäckel said.
	Despite this emotional strain, fathers are still seen as the familial breadwinner, and can often find themselves burdened for life with child support and alimony payments to ex-wives.
	"In cases where the man earns a lot and can pay for everyone, there's no problem. But we're seeing more frequently that the man's income isn't enough for everyone," Zypries said in an interview with the women's magazine Brigitte. Ideally, she said, both partners would take financial responsibility for themselves after a divorce.
	"A man can't be expected to support his ex-wife for years, especially if she could go back to work, and as a consequence not have the money to support children from a second marriage," she said.
	Lack of political reaction
	But Jäckel said that those closely involved with the fathers' rights movement are skeptical that their concerns will be heeded by politicians.
	Unlike in Britain, where the activist group Fathers 4 Justice has successfully attracted attention to the plight of divorced dads through spectacular stunts, campaigns by similar German groups have "barely registered politically," Jäckel said, adding that ploys aimed at grabbing media attention can make a desperate father's situation even worse.
	"I've often seen it happen here that fathers who go to the media to publicize their cases are punished by the judges," she said. "In the worst case, this can even result in their custody rights being taken away. The judges' logic is that dragging a case of unfair treatment into the public eye only damages the child's rights, and that someone who would do this is a bad father." Deanne Corbett, DW-WORLD.DE

November 23 2002

Man wins a $70,000 paternity ruling sets precedent

By Ian Munro

	A man who successfully sued his former wife for damages because she told him he was the father of her lover's children had set an Australian legal precedent, the man's lawyer said yesterday.
	Judge John Hanlon awarded Liam Magill $70,000 for general damages and economic loss, and ordered his former wife, Meredith Magill, to pay costs.
	Mr. Magill's solicitor, Vivien Mavropoulos, said the decision had extended the law of deceit to the circumstances of a man being falsely led to believe he was the biological parent of a child.
	A tearful Mr. Magill, 52, would not comment after the judgment, but his partner, Cheryl King, said they were ecstatic. "It's the mere fact we got a judgment in favour," Ms. King said. "Money does not come into the equation - it's the fact we have been able to set a precedent.
	"We wanted this woman to be held accountable for her actions. So far as setting a precedent, we have achieved what we set out to achieve."
	Mrs. Magill's barrister, Bill Gillies, obtained a 28-day stay on the court order, leaving open the option of an appeal.
	The court had heard that Mr. Magill married his wife in 1988. DNA tests in 2000 showed that Mr. Magill was the biological father of only the first of their three children born between April, 1989, and November, 1991.
	After the couple separated late in 1992, Mr. Magill made child support payments for all three children until 1999. At one time his take-home pay was reduced to about $130 a week.
	Judge Hanlon said evidence that Mrs. Magill, 36, had misled her husband about paternity began with the children's birth certificates in which she nominated him as the father.
	He said evidence suggested that Mrs. Magill knew her husband was not the father of either child. "If she did not know for a positive fact that Mr. Magill was not the father, she was at least being reckless as to the truth," Judge Hanlon said.
	He said he accepted Mr. Magill's testimony that the couples' sexual relationship had all but ceased by the time the third child was conceived, and it was likely that Mrs. Magill was having sex more frequently with her lover than with her husband.
	The court heard that Mr. Magill suffered stress, anxiety and depression over the break-up of his marriage and the revelation that he was not the father of all of his children. He had been unable to work for several years.
	Judge Hanlon said the damages award was not a punishment for Mrs. Magill's infidelity, nor was it an adjustment or rebate for past child support.
	Judge Hanlon said he was aware that Mrs. Magill would have been trying to save her marriage from the enormous uproar had she revealed her suspicions about her younger children's paternity.
	Mr. Magill had sought $100,000 in general damages and $300,000 in further, exemplary damages. Judge Hanlon said that awarding exemplary damages would have disregarded the complexities of the situation that confronted Mrs. Magill.

Australia