🚀 go-pugleaf

Dear all,

Please read the following story. If you feel as outraged about it as I do,
then please take a minute to send a fax or email of protest to the
Newfoundland Minister of Justice.

The father in the story was ordered back to Canada by the Hague Convention
in Australia. The Canadian court was supposed to hear the case. If enough
public pressure is put on the Minister of Justice, then maybe we can speed
things along. All he wants is for his case to be heard.


Thank you.
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Newfoundland Minister of Justice
Christopher Decker
 
 (709) 729-2869
 (709) 729-0469 FAX
 email: justice@civil.just.gov.nf.ca
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Transcript of CBC lead story, Here and Now
November 26, 1996
St. John's Newfoundland Canada
 
Anchorman: A custody dispute which spans three countries and two continents has
found its way into Newfoundland Family Court. At the center of the dispute are
two little girls who have never lived in Newfoundland. But soon a court will
place them into foster care while it decides their future. Deanne Fleet reports.
 
Deanne: This little girl is eight. This little girl is six. We can't tell you
who they are because of a court order imposed on the CBC. The girls have never
lived here and they say they prefer to be back in their South Pacific home.
 
Eight-year-old: I don't know anyone, and I don't like the weather - always wet
and miserable. 
 
Deanne: The girls are here with their father because of a custody dispute. A
dispute that moved from one American state to another and continued on another
continent. Two weeks ago it brought them to Newfoundland. This is where their
mother lives now. On Friday their parents went to court to fight the custody
matter again, but this family court Judge (Judge Noonan in court room) took what
lawyers, and a law professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, call a rare
and highly unusual step. Without meeting the parents or the girls, or calling
Social Services, Noonan ordered the girls put into foster care until custody is
worked out.
 
Deanne to Six-year-old: Do you know what is going to happen next ?
 
Six-year-old: No.
 
Deanne to Eight-year-old: Do you know what is going to happen next ?
 
Eight-year-old: I am going to have to be put in a foster home and I don't like
that. I don't want to go. I want to stay with my father, and there is really
just no good reason for it.
 
Deanne: Judge Noonan told lawyers she was doing it because the girls knew too
much from both parents about the custody battle, but their father says that
doesn't justify putting them into a foster home in a strange place.
 
Father: I think it is absolutely outrageous and irresponsible. I have no idea
right now what I can do about it other than to object every way I can. There is
no point in appealing. I have been told it could take a year to hear something
like this in an appeal. In that time the kids could be thoroughly abused by the
system.
 
Deanne: The girls will be in a foster home at least until February or March. The
oldest will celebrate her 9th birthday there. What she wants is a lawyer who
will fight on her behalf.
 
Eight-year-old: I say to them that their decision is wrong about putting us into
a foster home.
 
Deanne: Her grandfather that lives in Notre Dame Bay, is appalled.
 
Grandfather: I am ashamed of the court system in my own province.
 
Deanne: The girls mother says that she is surprised by the judge's decision but
she now supports putting her daughters in a foster home. She didn't want to do a
TV interview. Although last year she went public twice with her side of the
custody dispute. On Wednesday, the two girls will be handed over to a social
worker and taken to a foster home. Both parents will be allowed supervised
visits. Meanwhile, over the next several months, a court will decide whether
they start a new life in this province or resume the lives they left behind a
continent away.
 
Deanne Fleet, CBC news, St. John's.