PRESS RELEASE
Center for Children's Justice, Inc. 5082 East Hampden Avenue, Suite 233 Denver, Colorado 80222 (303)282-1634
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
4 PM MST, February 22, 2000
FATHER PUTS FAMILY COURTS ON TRIAL
Declaring a Colorado family law unconstitutional and discriminatory against fathers, a divorced father filed suit in Denver District Court Tuesday seeking to block enforcement of the so-called "best interests of the child" statute in family courts.
Robert Muchnick, a Denver father of two, is seeking an order prohibiting Colorado's family and appellate courts, including the state Supreme Court, from using the "best interests" standard to decide the fate of children and parents in divorce and custody cases.
Muchnick said use of that standard in divorce and post-divorce situations illegally strips one parent of fundamental parental rights and often partially or completely deprives children of a parent.
"The statute appears to be sensible and fair at first glance," he said. "But in practice, it's routinely used to rip children from their fathers' lives and award them exclusively to mothers. Dad's lucky if he gets every other weekend. Sometimes it's even the other way around. But it's almost never fair.
"That's not justice for children or parents," Muchnick said. "That's tyranny."
The suit seeks to enjoin the use or application of the best interests of the child statute on the grounds that it violates one parent's rights to equal protection under the law and that parent's "liberty interest in family," a right Muchnick said has been repeatedly affirmed by the country's highest courts.
"Divorce changes things. Kids change things. You have to be responsible to your kids, and put them first in a divorce, not your own needs or wants," he said.
The suit names as defendants the state of Colorado, all the Supreme Court justices, the Appeals Court judges, and one named and multiple unnamed District Court judges.
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