News: Fathers’ Rights, Child Support, Custody

In a speech to the Manawatu Family Court’s Association last night, Judge Peter Boshier attacked media reporting on the Family Court, pointing to a number of specific examples where he says reporters did not do their jobs.

The media were, along with the public, banned from attending the Family Court until the Care of Children Act came into force on July 1, 2005.

Under the act, the court opened to accredited media, provided the names of parties and children involved were not published. 

Judge Boshier said he supported the change – opening the court to public scrutiny aided accountability, enabled the public to be better informed, and also allowed the court to respond to what it saw as unjustified criticism of secrecy.

However, he said the media had failed to grasp the opportunity offered by the open court.

In the year since the act came into force, there had been 40 requests by media to attend hearings.

The slow uptake was explainable in that family court cases were generally not particularly newsworthy, Judge Boshier said.

However, a search of print and radio media databases yielded 183 stories on the family court since July 1, 2005, while TVNZ showed about 17 results, and TV3 five references.

The majority dealt with fathers’ rights groups, with domestic violence the second most reported subject.

“Fewer than five per cent of the reports I found related to what actually happens inside the Family Court, as opposed to reports of what someone says happens in the court,” he said.

Judge Boshier said stories generally relied on an aggrieved party approaching the media and claiming the court had perpetuated an injustice – as had happened in the widely-reported custody dispute between Stephen and Diane Jelicich over their daughter Caitlin last year.

“All that is necessary is to give the aggrieved litigant a platform and then invite those who are being attacked an opportunity to respond, so that, at least, notional requirements of balance are being maintained.

“It is a little like offering someone an opportunity to throw a Molotov cocktail into someone else’s front porch and then inviting the party being attacked to respond with an offered fire extinguisher, as an expression of fairness,” he said.

Judge Boshier said in other courts, the media were often present, and could see for themselves the “self-serving” nature of claims of injustice, while having access to arguments from counsel, the evidence and the judgment.

“It is unlikely that the media would report a case so incompletely and one-sidedly as to include only the assertions of one disaffected party, aggrieved at the decision, and report the assertions of that party as fact.”

Yet that was what happened in reports about the family court.

In specific examples, Judge Boshier pointed his finger at National Radio for an interview with a female litigant earlier this year.

He said the woman had made unchallenged assertions about the court process which were incorrect or omitted important balancing considerations. This prompted Judge Boshier to go on the programme two days later to outline the facts of the case.

Another example was a television item on the Sunday current affairs programme that dealt with claims of bias against men in the family court.

He said the programme showed an “almost complete lack of research”, claiming New Zealand was planning to follow a mediation process trialled in Australia when the mediation process had in fact been a key part of the family court’s processes for some years.

“But of more concern was the way that various male litigants, including a passing taxi-driver at a street protest, were able to claim, without being challenged or required to present any proof of this, that they had been badly treated by the court and that the court was therefore biased against men.”

Judge Boshier said an aggrieved party could not be an objective critic of their own case.

“Criticism is a healthy and proper role for the media – but it requires being informed.

“And often the media aren’t.”

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