What happens when a justice system devolves and becomes unjust, and contemptible?
Christie Blatchford, a columnist with the National Post—which is the more conservative of Canada’s two national newspapers—has recently been running a series that have been probing the depths of the dysfunction that predominates throughout much of Canada’s family law system, especially in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The situation has gotten so bad that even insiders working within the system will admit to a newspaper columnist that it is “utterly broken,” “expensive,” and “convoluted.” Instead of being places of fairness—after all Lady Justice is supposed to operate with blind impartiality and fairness—far too many Canadian family courts have become depressing, “soul-crushing places.”
Child custody disputes now commonly drag on for 10, 12, even 18 years. Many of the custody disputes in Ontario will cost about $45,000 per litigant just to walk into court day 1. And that’s just the beginning of the financial hit. Many non-custodial parents—mostly men—end up in bankruptcy while being pursued for the rest of their lives by a provincial family maintenance and enforcement agency. Blatchford cited this sad comment made about one such man whose
despair ended in suicide: “His bank accounts were locked, he lost his homes, his vehicle, his business, his pension. You emasculate a man and take away his ability to provide … he’s a human being. He has limits. Yet if he could have just seen his girls, he could have handled all this.”
Citing case after case, Blatchford carefully documents the perversion of justice being wrought by such “family” courts. And what are the results when a justice system degenerates into an injustice system?
One post in response to Blatchford’s articles says, “We have a whole generation scared of getting married. Was that the system’s plan to break the family unit? In my area the young men are going around having babies with different moms and collecting welfare. Neither party wants to get married. Single guys with money are afraid to get married. What a cesspool!”
Society is suffering under the unjust judges of Canada’s various provincial family court systems. But eventually there will be a turn about and those who have perverted justice will be called to account. As it is written:
Woe (judgment is coming) to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness;
Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5:20 Amplified Bible
Articles commented on by this blog: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/christie-blatchford-getting-to-the-root-of-ontarios-family-law-mess
