Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss
retired President of the Family Division & judge in Court
of Appeal
| As previously the most senior family law judge in the UK,
and as Chair of the Family Justice Committee set up to advice Parliament, Dame Elizabeth
Butler-Sloss must bear major responsibility for the circumstances men and fathers find
themselves in, as described elsewhere (mainly in publications) on this website.
It is significant that as a judge she was appointed Chair of the Family
Justice Committee. This implied that she had major influence in advising
about future laws. But if a judge is heavily involved in law-making, doesn't
that undermine democracy ?
In view of her previous unique positions, we will provide a full analysis
of some of her outpourings.
Acknowledgement : image from The Daily Telegraph, 9 January 2001. |
|
| The News of the World carried an article about
Butler-Sloss's husband. Under the front-page headlines "Cleveland Judge Sex
Scandal" and "Dame's randy spouse frolics
with vice girls" was an article reporting that he was a judge in Kenya and was
'associating' with prostitutes.
We may well ask : Has her experience of this episode in her life
'coloured' her view of men and affected her judgements about family cases and men's rights
? If so, is she capable of being an 'impartial tribunal' in family cases as required by
article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights ?
(Butler-Sloss had acted in the Cleveland child abuse inquiry, hence the "Cleveland
judge" reference.)
Acknowledgement : Image of front page, News of the World, 17 July 1988.
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Crazy statement #1
She is
reported to have said, regarding obstruction to contact [by mothers] "the options
available to judges are very limited" or some such phrase. Really ? We don't agree
for one second that that is the case. Judges have enormous discretion about
children issues and money, too much in fact.
Crazy statement #2
During a parliamentary committee oral
evidence session, she responded to a question about bias against fathers as
follows :
Q23 Keith Vaz: Dame Elizabeth, there is a perception that the family
court system is biased against fathers. What is your view on that?
Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss: Well, it is untrue for a number
of reasons.
A report
about her evidence (see below) was placed on the BBC News website for Tues 9 Nov
2004. If the reporting is correct, and Butler-Sloss really believed that
"parents were treated equally over custody and access", we can only ask you the
reader to consider that she :
-
is
presumably a highly intelligent, certainly highly educated person
-
has
significant experience of family court work
-
has
therefore no excuse for ignorance.
To
illustrate the absurdity of her comments, consider that the report says she was
concerned about Father4Justice (F4J) activities e.g. "They had, for example,
parked a double decker bus equipped with a loudspeaker system outside her
private home, she said". But she, and many other judges, have been responsible
for stripping perfectly innocent men of their entire homes, along with the
contents including children and life savings. She should worry about a bus
parked outside of her home, when she does this to other people ?
Her
attitude, because of the facts and the reality of the real-life situation, leads
us then to consider her grasp on reality.
Report about her statements at
a parliamentary committee oral evidence session
This was
placed on the BBC News website for Tues 9 Nov 2004 :
'No court bias against fathers'
Claims that family courts are biased in favour of mothers have been rejected by
top judge Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss.
|
The
president of the family division told MPs parents were treated equally over
custody and access to children.
She
attacked Fathers 4 Justice for its stunts which have included throwing
powder at Tony Blair in the Commons and scaling the walls at Buckingham
Palace.
|
A recent fathers' rights protest |
The
president of the family division told MPs parents were treated equally over
custody and access to children.
She
attacked Fathers 4 Justice for its stunts which have included throwing powder at
Tony Blair in the Commons and scaling the walls at Buckingham Palace.
The
constitutional affairs committee hearing into the family court system took place
amid tight security.
Dame
Elizabeth said she had met other groups, including Fathers Direct and Families
Need Fathers, but added: "I cannot meet Fathers 4 Justice because they are not
being sensible."
They
had, for example, parked a double decker bus equipped with a loudspeaker system
outside her private home, she said.
"They
are not going to talk, they are going to tell me," she said.
Body
searched
She also
said that a small number of disputes between parents were irreconcilable and, as
far as the courts were concerned, unmanageable.
"Some of
those are the vocal people we are hearing," she said.
|
Visitors to the hearing were body searched and only full Commons pass
holders were allowed into the meeting itself, while others were seated in an
overflow room to watch proceedings on internal TV screens.
The
hearing was the start of an inquiry into how well the family courts are
serving parents.
They
heard Dame Elizabeth reject notions of bias against fathers in the family
courts system, insisting the first priority was always the best interests of
the children caught in the middle.
|
Dame Elizabeth: Courts are fair |
Status quo
"There
is nothing in the law to lead courts to chose one parent or another," she said.
"But
when parents separate the vast majority of children stay with their mother and a
minority with the father.
"At the
end of the day, the status quo occurs because the child is settled there," she
said.
But Dame
Elizabeth accepted there was an unprecedented level of criticism being levelled
at the courts over the issue.
In her
30 years experience she had never before come across such a level of criticism.
It was
mostly ill-founded and the courts might do more to publicise their
decision-making to the public, she said.
She also
stressed the desirability of mediation between parents to stop cases reaching
the courts in the first place.
Acknowledgement : BBC News website, 9 Nov 2004
Transcript of the
parliamentary committee oral evidence session of Tues 9 Nov 2004
To help you understand what people
like this woman say to a Parliamentary committee, you may read the
transcript
of the relevant section of the oral evidence session. See Q23-26 especially.
Transcript of her
response to question about the ethics of family law at a public lecture
Here we can see how she responds to
perfectly reasonable questions about the ethics of family law. She does not use
the word 'ethic' or 'ethical' in her reply.
Transcript of
her response to question on ethics of family law.
Comment
: she is said live very well on a farm in Devon; she also goes fox-hunting - hard luck if you're a father or a fox.