Class Action - Possibilities

(on degrading treatment)

i.e. those men divorced using fabricated/perjured ‘unreasonable behaviour’ petitions, that is those who have done nothing substantively wrong and not proved so in court, then had their lives damaged with removal of children, home, life savings and future income

• men are being divorced using trivial and fabricated grounds when they have done no substantive wrong

• very serious damage to fabric of life is being caused by matrimonial law, with attendant side effects, e.g. with cases of loss of employment, health problems, including mental health, and suicide amongst men

• there is clear evidence that the ECHR case law criteria have been met with humiliation, fear, anguish, done arbitrarily

• this is done on an entirely arbitrary basis

• treatment not ‘degrading’
• that there is bound to be some damage in divorce
• that women are just as damaged
• or that this article is being mis-applied

(no one shall be held in servitude)

- could use case of a man with a deduction of earnings order

• that proportion of a man’s labour extracted for excessive child maintenance

• the woman with residence, who will usually have abandoned her husband and divorced him using fabricated grounds, also benefits

• the only way for the man to avoid this is to quit his job or career

(CWO REPORT INACCURATE)

• hearing unfair as inaccurate evidence was accepted by the court

• refer to rules on evidence in UK law

• no objective assessment of children’s welfare

• there is no evidence in social science or psychology research which indicates that mother priority is better for children i.e. no objective reasons for mother-priority

• can quote statistics of how many men obtain residence and use this as persuasive argument

• can also demonstrate that no authority in the UK will accept responsibility for this (see NAPO report [3, 4, 5])

• this has a limited scope and would be a brief tightly argued application
• the argument against our application includes right to appeal and that removing the inaccuracies in a report would not necessarily mean a different decision on residence
• ISSUE we could directly challenge the mother priority issue (which has been stated openly in the Scottish Court of Session) and currently being challenged in ECHR for an unmarried father

(EQUALITY OF ARMS)

• many men not provided with legal aid, when the woman is, including cases in which they earned comparable figures i.e. the UK Legal Aid Board is operating unfairly

• this when many men give up legal actions because of cost and stress

• they will say that only those without funds receive legal aid

(on interference by authority in family life)

• arbitrary interference by authority when a man has done no substantive wrong, and not proved to have done wrong in a court i.e. where there was no ‘matrimonial’ offence on the part of the man

• argument against is that the behaviour of the parties is, or may be examined during children and finance issues

(on right to marry and found a family)

any man who has not (re)married and who is familiar with what is going on in matrimonial and family law

• the state allows and encourages men to marry ‘according to the national laws governing this right’

• marriage must be a distinguishable state from unmarried, and those who drafted Article 12 must have assumed that the ‘national laws’ would ensure that

• in the UK the ‘national laws’ actually make marriage more damaging than cohabitation

• the ‘laws’ in the UK do not support marriage but encourage divorce by women

• most men do not know what the laws are at the time of marriage and fatherhood - further, the ‘laws’ may be changed by unaccountable unelected judges at any time during a man’s marriage and fatherhood i.e. changed without reference to the public or in response to any public opinion

• the state, having granted the rights in Article 12 will also destroy the investment the man had made in a marriage and remove a family, in some cases entirely, from the life of men, and the salient point is that this is done without any reference to any fault on the part of the man

• COMMENT we could also use John Campion’s arguments in his paper Divorce Law Practice : The Invisible Engine of a Matrilineal Society [6] about corruption in the system which has created a matrilineal society, and the campaign by anti-family lobby groups [3, 7, 8] which is clearly against the Article 12 provisions

• we can readily find many men divorced against their wishes using fabricated petitions and stripped of home, children, life savings and then forced to send maintenance
• the argument against our application would include that if one party has decided the marriage is over, that is sufficient, and the children should be looked after
• ISSUE - is it best to describe all the malpractices which takes place including e.g. the NAPO policy and lack of control ?
• ISSUE - the laws applied are different for men and women (is this a reason to combine Article 12 with Article 14 ?)

• Article 3
• Article 6(1)
• Article 8(2)
• Article 12
• Article 1 of Protocol 1

• women are not treated the same, based on the evidence we have in :

• The Emperor’s New Clothes and Marriage and Fatherhood [1, 2] survey and statistics on difference of treatment

• and in the NAPO policy [3, 4, 5]

• differences in social security provisions [7] e.g. child benefit may also be quoted, and could be made under a separate application

• argument against is that difference is justified in children’s interests
• we are unsure if this article can be addressed without reference to mother-priority in residence of children, court welfare reports, i.e. that there is a broad or general discrimination without addressing specifics such as legal aid, court welfare report, etc.

(on enjoyment of possessions)

• women are not treated the same, based on the evidence we have in The Emperor’s New Clothes and Marriage and Fatherhood [1, 2] survey and statistics on difference of treatment

• emphasise arbitrary nature of the discrimination

• differences in social security provisions [7] e.g. child benefit may also be quoted, and could be made under a separate application

similar to ECHR Article 6(1) ?

as ECHR Article 12

ISSUE : SHOULD WE ENCORAGE OTHERS e.g. Australians to use ICCPR, as ECHR is not available to them

as ECHR Article 12

as ECHR Article 12

NB as ECHR Article 5 of Protocol 7 - is not ratified by the UK i.e. not available at ECHR

• men are treated differently

• COMMENT we have The Emperor’s New Clothes and Marriage and Fatherhood [1, 2] survey evidence on difference of treatment and statistical evidence

• differences in social security provisions [7] e.g. child benefit may also be quoted, and could be made under a separate application

• arguments against would refer to ‘protection of any children’
• arguments against would include that women in same position (e.g. working full-time) would be treated the same

ISSUE : NOT AVAILABLE IN ECHR, SO SHOULD USE IT despite above issue re: other groups world-wide such as the Australians

as ECHR Article 14 but see ISSUE