Der Prozeß of Der Law
1. I
can see Russia from my house- Not all AVO “supporting witnesses”
are necessarily “in on the joke” about
how the short notice regime works, the weird allegations by other witnesses, how
the new litigation “claim” is then an asset to be traded in the family law game
for cash, why the magistrates are selected because they are almost guaranteed
to ensure an unfair hearing, or what their own potential legal and practical
liability will be for signing the standard form AVO statement prepared in one
of Sydney’s leading AVO fraud factories
“specialist legal boutiques, ready to help with precedent documents, and this
time we promise to get the names right” . Dot Com. The witnesses who are useful idiots think that they are “actually
doing the right thing” because the wife has told them she is stressed, and she
does look it- she’s wearing black all the time, darling, and crying- and he
must be in the wrong. It does not matter that more knowledgeable people, like the
bridesmaids, or all the other neighbours, have each walked away as they know
the claims are just utter drivel, and actually she needs prozac. Yet the “dial
a witness” runs a big legal risk when they or other nutcases join the affray,
whether they are aware or not of what’s up. So, all wound up like a yoyo, The Inebriated
Loutess in Support gives a statement saying they have seen the ex-wife look
dishevelled in the last few months, that she is stressed, and they repeat what
the wife’s says, not as evidence as you’d ordinarily understand that term, but
rather as evidence she has said she was
stressed and they add in that you are a ”prickly guy”, having um, er, met
you once for 8 minutes at a bbq, and um, er not quite sure if she should have rung
the wife’s actual friend to find out what’s actually going on, because um, gosh
she doesn’t know who that person is, because um gosh she doesn’t know the
family at all. Or maybe the neighbourhood fruit loop, possum women, who is sure
she heard you yelling. Or it could be the possums. And only you yelling mind
you, never the wife, as the neighbour had the radio on at those times, and sure
she ignores the bit about owing you $20,000 or how you asked her if she was
hitting her own kids a year ago. Leave that bit out, because revenge and motive
is not relevant also at the interim stage and may just be disputed later, not
necessarily be wrong. Then an uncorrelated story about how the witness herself
can’t sleep. Once there was a man in the street, it might have been you. Or ,
another man. Or the husbands female lawyer. Or a man. It’s all very worrying. Narrative
that goes nowhere. All weird stories about men and streets and noises and late
night calls. But while the narrative is not a complaint about you, it bulks up
the witness statement, even if its full of drivel as it will never be tested
and if it is she just brings the possum to court and pleads insanity. The cops,
though, count weight of paper at the interim stage, not the quality of
evidence, as they well know the Magistrates barely browse the allegations not
read them in 3 minutes if ever, is all. To
initiate an AVO scam, spouses can use the police, or lay a direct AVO
complaint, but the Wallopers are cheaper, add more gravitas, and are pretty
much willing to do whatever is asked as they are so overwhelmed with the large
number of AVO claims, and if they rarely leave the office it won’t be to
investigate, it will be a trip to visit Adrian at the local cronut shop. The Wallopers
don’t understand civil law enforcement responsibilities and have a
distinguished record of not asking about what’s actually going on- they rely on
you to tell them after their “colleagues on the bench” have issued “their”
order. Sure say the cops, everyone spins a story, so what’s the problem , as
“that’s how we bring marriages to an end, if the guy just won’t farking move;
don’t sweat it”. As a consequence the NSW cops get played weekly but rarely can
work out precisely who it is that’s playing them. The key objectives for the
AVO arbitrage litigation strategy , as ultimately determined in the playbook of
your ex partners family lawyer, is to apply her deeply fraudulent and abusive
business model so as to:
·
evict you from the family home with
2 hours warning so her client can
live rent free for 2 years while the Family Court meanders, or allow
them to sell the house without your
input. (The Family Court don’t see a 2 year rent free period as requiring any
kind of property adjustment- time value of money isn’t a concept lawyers
comprehend, all weird stuff, but oddly something that encourages delay,
rewarding…the lawyers). But lack of notice and zero disclosure are the key
components of this “litigation strategy”, in which the lawyer also asks her
client very few precise details as to why there are 4 versions of the same
story in the time she has been retained as counsel. (It must be stress related,
darling);
·
Make many claims, none in detail.
The AVO legislation doesn’t require specific incidents. So you may well face a
chronology of 3- 50 “domestic arguments”.
Well, records of the fact that she didn’t get her own way, and when she
called you a “See you next Tuesday”, and that she “would have been better
off shagging Hugh Jackman” (not that she
ever met Huge O, but she’s thought about it, often) , or the neighbours son
anyway, and then you told her to “shut it”. That’s surely a sign that she is
being “mistreated as a women because she only had 27 minutes spleen venting
time, not 30, and felt that was an act of patriarchal hegemony, something she
realises her father had also been doing for a long time, especially when she
read that book last week given to her via the divorce support network”. On and on it goes. Apprehension about what ?
Anyway the cops sometimes realise they are being played , but see their job as
being preventative and “bringing marriages to an end” so if they make a mistake
, well, as they see it, well it’s a noble one. The magistrate will not read the
facts, as that just way beyond them.
·
Take control of the kids once you’re
out of the way and then poison them with her side of events early. Having made obscene
wads of cash by delaying the childhood of your children, the FOFLI make more
cash by shaking you down if you get annoyed with them. This of course forces
the children to choose sides, and oddly the residential parent “wins” (round 1,
they eventually work it out). The interim Angry Vengeance Order effectively
inhibits your contact with the kids as they stay with her while the order is
“sorted out “. Bitter control freaks love this stuff and the family lawyers
don’t care about the kids as someone else is paying their (much increased)
bills. Also the AVO 3 minutes of hell becomes a “platform play” to manipulate
the Family Court into labelling the parents as “high conflict”- so despite the
unfairness of it all those 3 minutes actually ensure you lose your kids as the
over worked family court gets trapped in its own ideological vortex. Control of
the kids, and of course quite coincidentally, enhances property law claims
significantly under the discretionary property regime under S 75 (2) FLA 1975.
Gosh, isn’t all this just such a coincidence? You can go to the Family Court but that takes
ages and costs money. And hah hah, their orders are ignored anyway. The
Keystone Cops, meanwhile, think that “the 75(2)” being talked about is most
likely the alternative freeway to Canberra.
·
Take particular advantage of the lowest level of judicial
officers, far too many of whom have a
proven track record of being unable to spot, after 20-40,000 odd interim AVOs
per annum, per state, since 2007 that they are being played as fools for the
re-introduction of fault based divorce in far too many cases. Some magistrates
say they do indeed have “suspicions” but most are just too darn “busy” in each 3
minute case so as to ensure any integrity measures generally, and in particular
cases. Only ten percent of NSW magistrates
admit they regularly see problems, so if you get a good magistrate you might be
lucky. Queensland magistrates are a lot more astute. But ask a few NSW barristers
over a post-match beer and the answer is way different- many magistrates are
regarded as low level idiots, people who were poor lawyers, bottom of the class
at law school too often, but who got their jobs as political paybacks. The
level of disdain is extraordinary, especially from former judges and older male
barristers, who just regard the magistrates as horribly naïve. That’s the nice
comments. There is no system in NSW to ensure the best lawyers get appointed to
the bench. From the early days of Governor Philip its always been a state based
on franchises and “now what about my little mate” deals ; its now just part of
the inherent political DNA. I don’t mean to hold the magistrates in
contempt but be well aware that barristers espouse views that make Fathers4Justice
seem like soft, um, crocs.
·
Divert your resources by ensuring that it will take you 9 months, require you
to call witnesses to prove your innocence, and cost you $15- 50 K to clear your
name at a time you are also spending money on a family lawyer to sort out core
issues. The lawyer on the other side meanwhile is checking to see that her own
fee agreement isn’t explicitly connected to the outcome of the AVO scam, or
indeed a percentage of “the take” as that causes problems with the NSW Law
Society, if explicitly drafted in that fashion and the Law Society are one of
the few to be scared about. Not that duffer magistrate who she’s lining up for
another application very, very soon.
Come in spinner.
·
Arbitrage the lack of disclosure relative to
other legal alternatives to resolve the situation Hiding information is
an essential feature of AVO Land. You will see less disclosure in a scam AVO
application than you will see in an ASIC Info Memo; or a warranty card for a $
27 sunbeam toaster. Panic, panic, panic is order de jour.
·
Bring the marriage to an end. The
“witlesseses” don’t like you anymore. Most “interim scam “AVOs, if challenged,
do not proceed but rather provide her new friends a forum in which to vomit up
vicious, twisted, bitchy comments about you, and talk about how she is a good
mum, like they are (when sober), observations that have nothing to do with the
facts but rather demonstrate their utter
fealty in the divorce. (Wrong court, and it’s not a teenage popularity contest,
Tracey, it’s a “court”. Well, apparently). An AVO is very tribal: advocacy not
objectivity. No one actually wears a “Team Nigella” T shirt to court, but if
they did and it were seen, it just wouldn’t make any difference. The Magistrate
is just delighted that she has subverted the Federal Law on “so called” no fault
divorce and thus enabled the return of fault based divorce on the grounds of
unreasonable behaviour, for that’s the effect of the scam AVO. Yes, mens anger is the issue, as they see it;
yet in any event The Wallopers aren’t the way to untangle the issue without
permanently damaging the kids. Dobbers never come over the fence- yours or any
one elses- to find out what’s going on and what the causes are. Of course, one
day someone will look at causes. But no family lawyer or family judge will,
today, own up to their roles and deal with causes. For symptoms and alleged
symptoms are much more lucrative to milk. Anyway, as Magistrates know, it took courage under fire to be Clarrie
Briese, and look what price he paid
·
Given there is negligible downside risk
of making a bogus AVO complaint, many think of it as a Nietzschean lie for the
greater good. Of course the magistrates know they are being lied to- go to any Local
Court and watch the Magistocracy howl with derisive laughter about peoples wine collections being
ransacked after they issue an Angry Vengeance Order. It’s just got nothing to
do with violence, or even arguments anymore - it’s a property order” game”; a
ransacking ordered not by Parliament but by the Chattering Classes as “close
enough thereto”. Unfortunately, with the effluxion of time, just too many
people are “in on the Truthiness” (as Stephen Colbert calls it) joke ………….and
the joke is the Magistrates, they just haven’t realised it yet. People give evidence that’s blatantly nutty
and clearly false. Batty. Police do nothing, and instead give marital advice. Oh
yes. “Look matey every knows the Family
Court is farked, ok, so it’s time to move on, we do this all the time”. The
lies as are justified on the basis that "at least it’s moving people on",
for everyone is just utterly frustrated with the ineptness of the Family Court;
it takes way too long. As a consequence real violence victims are ignored by
all this middle class angst crowding out of the courts to achieve an upper hand
in housing disputes and the police have no time to focus their attention on
real issues - such as enforcement of an AVO against someone with an existing
record, or a history of similar complaints. Resource allocation, you see, is undertaken at the behest of the suburban ambulance
chasers, LLB (U. Skype, 8 years to finish degree).
·
Ensure any issues the wife had are “buried”
in the tsunami. AVOs are very useful when women “tap the kids in
frustration when p**sed”, as the husband is often embarrassed to raise this
issue, and after the event it just looks like a bitter complaint. Anyway ,
hitting them doesn’t justify you yelling as it would if this were a criminal
law proceeding, and sadly is not illegal in Australia, as apparently that’s a
“nanny state issue”. Anyway in 3 surreptitious minutes, what granularity do you
expect ?
·
Not have any questions arise about
alternatives. If a Sole Occupancy Order had been sought in the Family
Court a question is asked as to the parties’ cash resources. But if the Local
Court is used a somnambulant magistrate will never inquire whether she cash
swept the joint accounts for $350,000 the night before the order was sought. No
one even reads S 20 (2) (c) as reading the Act can occur at a final hearing and
some magistrates make Dennis Denuto seem sharp. By not making disclosures that
are required under The Family Law Act, an alternative procedure designed to
separate couples under the same roof, the lawyers assist in perpetuating the
idea that all women are financial victims so that their mates, the magistrates,
don’t feel like total, complete and utter spivs. The Family Court looks at
what’s fair and reasonable- the magistrate is barely. The state court does not
consider the best interests of any particular children, as what is imperative
is getting as many AVOs issued as it can, so it assumes separation with the
person first to file must inevitably be in the children’s best ( meaning in
this case “3 minutes of best ”) interests. By ensuring that such separation is
as brutal as possible the “I choose to be fact-lite NSW Magistrates” are doing
the community a huge disservice. Not as if they care of course, they just want
to keep The Wallopers happy by signing whatever is put in front of them. Very
often they just don’t even bother to
read the evidence- some allegations are often extraordinary. But really, 3
minute destruction of family units: what whoopee weed smoker in social policy
101 dreamt this one up ?
·
Assist in the Legal Professions crusade to
bring back the good old days of fault based divorce. No fault divorce
has shrunk the family law bar. They tried trafficking in and perpetuating satanic
molestation claims against fathers for a while, but Mia Farrow screwed that one
up and it seems to have come to an end (Family Court judges are 3 mensa levels above
magistrates and didn’t fall for those tirades for too long). However
magistrates are in a different court. Indeed as the Angry Vengeance regime is
not used to effect family mediation, then all communications go via- you
guessed it- the lawyers. Ka-freaking-Ching. The interface with federal and
state objectives overlap. What a mess for us, but what a great regime for
lawyers- no one can possibly discern what to do. Accordingly no one lawyer
“rocks the boat” and instead talks about “the seriousness of the process” At an
extra $30K per divorce as a minimum requiring all dialogue then go via the
lawyers, well the lawyers just love “the AVO game”.
·
Slur your reputation by applying the
violence label to yelling matches. Who
cares if you or your employees lose their jobs as a result?
·
Trade the AVO for a higher cash settlement.
(Gosh, not that this happens, of course). Btw- current price for an AVO trade:
15-30% of net wealth under 75 (2). With Sydney property prices, that’s a shed
load of money.
·
Allow an outlet for her client to satiate
the natural desire for revenge. It’s an Angry Vengeance Order- a
persecution, not a prosecution.
The politics of
labels v statistical reality
Shaw,
Jeff, “Apprehended violence orders: neither industry nor disease” 2000 Law
Society Journal 63
N
Gouda The AVO Backlash Feb 2000 Law
Society Journal 64 (a person who has anger management issues with spelling errors)
The strongest opponents of this scam should be those
genuinely concerned with domestic violence, but far too often they sit quiet
while their litigator mates make money out of milking extraordinarily weird
allegations, time and again, in middle class divorces where there is no history
of violence at all.
Sole occupancy orders -
Police Access Orders
under S 37
It’s not clear if what happens if your friends go into the
house. They have a right of access so it’s not trespass, they aren’t your
agent, and if peaceable it’s not
harassment even by them. Though not wise it’s hard to see how it’s unlawful if
they act to retrieve your property, unless
specifically banned by an order. People who stop your friends can be
liable in trespass/// distraint. Talk to a lawyer!
The argument about state v federal laws “covering the field”
of intimidation under the FLA 1975 is thrown into stark contrast if one parent
sends emails about the children, relying on the Federal Law concept of mediation.
The other party argues the email is itself intimidation “by volume of some
kind” (I am being bothered). Arguably both can co-exist in legal theory , but
in practice the state based law is a hindrance because it is so inept. See
recently Commonwealth v Australian Capital Territory [2013] HCA 55 http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2013/55.html; and on this topic http://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/05_2012/domestic_violence_laws_in_australia_-_june_2009.pdf at p 221, et seq
What was that about
Mens Anger again ? Men get angrier and angrier with the bogan justice system
devised by the Magistrates. Lawless, fact free justice, vomited into the family
law courts is a disgrace. The AVO system has already collapsed. .
2. Mr Kafka gazes intently at Her Rigorousness - As most arbitrage AVOs are interim orders,
there is no explicit obligation for a judge to provide a fair hearing, nor
indeed do they appear keen to admit any contrary evidence; and it is usually sufficient
the Complainant states that there is a subjective fear of being irritated intimidated . In their own mind.
You would think that there would be some
way to ensure this isn’t abused- for the L.A.W. actually requires that the
Magistrate must consider that the making
of an order is “ appropriate. In most
cases “appropriate” means that the
Complainant isn’t openly smirking in the 3-4 minutes (yes, that’s the average
hearing time) in which the order is “considered” (which often means “read”, but “browsed,
maybe” is a closer description), by Her
Inquisitiveness. Yet the verdict of history is manifestly clear: Jeff Shaw was
a first class fool in asserting that magistrates would provide any safeguards
at all. Would juries help or some form of community involvement result in
different outcomes ? After all 43% of the public believes many such stories are
invented at a time of marital break down, although 27% does not ? So are Muddly
Straights just hopelessly inept political appointees, or less worldly than us
yeoman (yeo people?)? The Men’s Rights Lads think that magistrates are nutters,
utter whackos, and that many of them prima facie sexist. Maybe unconsciously
the latter, but come on Clive Palmer could do better than that guys. Over half
the orders are not sought at the time of the split, rather they are sought 6 or
12 months later. Feminist whack –o- demics argue this is because it’s possible
that yelling takes a while to come to the surface. Maybe in some cases. The
courts just assume that such a “possibility” is an “inevitability” and that
they can’t be bothered thinking through the facts. But there is a better law
and economics explanation about incentives. As Steve Levitt pointed out in his
book Freakonomics the
outcomes of most social systems are directly connected to the design of
incentives of the decision makers. The failure to give effect to individual
justice is not because Magistrates, as a group at least, are inherently more
naïve than members of the public; nor are they all called Murray Farquhar; nor
are they slovenly. Nor do they think that just because “Det. Woger
Wogerson” isn’t the officer in charge,
that they can assume the case will be
thoroughly prepared. Rather it’s because the system strongly incentivises and
rewards judicial error – if they don’t get someone out of the house and
something happens they get vilified and won’t get a promotion to that coveted
Chief Magistrate role. If they inquire, that may take up “valuable police
time”. And every Magistrate is doing it, so why bother to apply the law? Anyway, because there is no benchmark, such as
convictions, or a prior history of disputes,
then just like Mr Justice Vasili Ulrikh , Magistrates feel they must act
on allegations- it’s all they can do to ensure the person before them doesn’t
appear to be stuffing cash into a Samsonite on the steps of the court to drop
the claim. An appeal court judge has pointed out that because it’s an interim
hearing, you are not entitled to run a full case: well, duh. The appellate
judges maintain that being “satisfied” about an order means “not biased”. Yet
behind all the legal sophistry is the hard fact that the Magistocracry just
back solve their “heavy workload” (930am -430pm, with only 90 minute for lunch,
goodness) by clearing all cases in 3 to 4 minutes. So pretending that
statistically you can be “satisfied” about being “appropriate” in precisely the
same time, yet with different fact patterns (lawyers are largely innumerate) is
just nuts. There is simply no good faith application of the statutory test in
each and every case, as the law clearly requires. Rather magistrates won’t say
what’s obvious to everyone else: they have surrendered total control of their own
courtrooms to the tsunami of AVO allegations and shuffle the papers as many
times as they can in the time allowed them by the Wallopers. The cops clearly
control the court process, and the Magistrates have lost any semblance of control
so optimise their calendars accordingly. Some folks justify this blatant abuse
of the rule of law as a social good; but that’s also hopelessly wrong.
Separating spouses who argue is best left to those who can intervene properly,
with disclosure, and fairly in the Family Courts. Not the box tickers of the
Local Courts, “approving targets” as if they were just sizing up yet another
waiter in some quaint restaurant in Lillehammer. The lowest level of the
judiciary has failed to uphold the rule of law, or read the statute- for they
don’t have the time nor do they seek the information to do their job at all. If
Anwar Ibrahim were confronted with “homo –poofter- evidence” of the kind we
mock Dr Mahathir about, well in a NSW
court, Anwar would in fact be thrown on the floor faster than you can eat a
bowl of Nasi Lemak. There is indeed a case to be made for quick interim contested
AVOs’, probably in the Family Court and in the manner originally envisaged, but the current quagmire, in practice, well, just aint it.
Satisfied as to what ?
Mick Jagger
took 3 minutes 38 seconds to sing “I can’t get no satisfaction”, but
magistrates, struggling to recall a person’s name, apparently can “get
satisfaction” some 22 seconds later.
This isn’t “satisfaction”; it’s
“obfuscation”. In the time it takes The Wallopers to recall “Two all-beef patties, special sauce,
lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun” in the correct order, someone has been moved out of their
home. The Local Court spends 25 % of its time acting on one sided allegations –
so a magistrate is “getting satisfied” 7
times in half an hour: if only my sex life were that good. Only lawyers can
maintain a straight face when claiming the current system “satisfies” society’s
interests in any way, shape, or form. As
citizens we do not expect each and every NSW magistrate to be Clarrie Briese.
But we do expect “our “ magistrates to apply the law in each case, scrutinise
the police, not laugh about
ransacked wine collections, be balanced not be culture warriors, be able
to deal with cases of mental health properly, follow basic natural justice
rules, direct traffic back to the Family Court, apply the 2007 law only for a proper
purpose, and not to have surrendered to
police queuing needs. Go on, constitutional law should be about the separation
of powers, but you guys just prove it’s the continuum of powers the way you
carry on failing to scrutinise anything at all. You know , the standards those
Constitutional Law Boffs, Williams and
Toomey , think you should comply with as an absolute minimum at all times, not
simply “aspire to” occasionally. Try it,
one day, and confound the Game Theorists.
“I think the
statute is investing faith in the Magistrate to form a belief judicially, which
is based not on caprice or convenience or personal value, but on some rational
grounds …. by and large, the legislation looks to the Magistrate to undertake
or allow a form of inquisitorial justice.” AB v Magistrates' Court at Heidelberg [2011] VSC 61 ,.. Is “lack of caprice” really what “satisfaction “ or “appropriate”
actually means ? Really ? The specific
wording differs from state to state ,
but it’s always the same core issues of
judicial spina bifida, and limited resources,
that must be confronted: http://australiandivorce.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/domestic-violence-can-be-committed.html. The designers of the AVO legislation
didn’t envisage this lopsided process be carried out in their name; and while it’s basis in law is actually
dodgy, it will be some considerable time before a supervisory court gets a
crack at sorting this nonsense out. It’s like Greg and Trevor Chappell do legal
analysis - “it technically works bro- so
bowl ’ em”.
The
prevalence of AVO fraud has significant policy and practical ramifications in
martial disputes in the Family Court. The parties certainly don’t trust each
other anymore and the bitterness festers. Because each party knows one of them
lied, a negotiated marital outcome is as
likely as a peace deal with Yasser Arafat- drawn out and dishonoured. Hence the
ambit claims are extended in the Family Court. The magistrates ensure that suspicion of all
jurists runs deep – if one part of the judiciary gave up on any semblance of
sanity won’t they all be equally daft ?
In turn this undermines community support for the courts- they become yet
another foot soldier in the culture wars,
an inept “player”, not a referee.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkNqk2MXsxA. Whatever the anger of Men’s Rights Groups they would have no
oxygen if the courts began to admit their mistakes for “When the facts change, I change my mind.
What do you do, sir” as John Maynard
Keynes once said. Systemic refusal to look at countervailing evidence is
deeply wrong at far too many levels. Either do the job properly or resign en
mass for want of resourcing.
One AVO
officer told us that “really , look really, it’s just all about separating warring
couples and having people just move on with their lives” as “her” case was weird
but everyone has a side to their story”. Great. Problem is that’s the role of
the Family Court occupancy order, with full disclosure. Great, except no voter
gave the police such a mandate. Great -except police intervention is massively
inept and heavy handed - making situations markedly worse for everyone
involved. And, frankly, winking at perjury is not something I want my police
force doing. The social costs is more marked- the Magistrates have ignited and
then fuelled an increasingly widespread
view that “violence against women” is akin to a claim that “McDonald’s coffee
is just too hot”. As the Human Headline says “shame, shame, shame”.
3.
After the Interim Order: there are no
rules, Alice- The enactment to give effect to all this is called
the Crimes Domestic Violence Act 2007 but it isn’t really a “law” at , at least an ordinary folks would
understand that term. Nor is it about
crimes at all, for its main actual use is about yelling and fears of yelling;
including real and also perceived fears, and fears of “nastiness” and imagined
fears of recollections of one side of arguments. As regards the most commonly
used section of the Act – subjective
“harassment or intimidation” there are no proscribed acts, just a general
requirement of "belief as to intimidatory intent". Often on the word
of a group, some of whom have family grudges they have been carrying from a very long time indeed. Because the law
doesn’t relate to defined acts, but rather applies also to any lawful act
carried out as a “means of harassment” nobody can agree on what’s inside and
outside the rules, so you live in fear the cops will imprison you at whim for a
breach of the AVO. And you can bet the other side works over time on that
score. The regime it isn’t “really criminal”, as the standard of proof is civil
(50% likelyish at a final hearing, 4 % ish, at an interim hearing- disagree, do
the back solve on rejections), save that in addition all normal rules of
evidence are thrown out, the “incidents” range all over the shop and
“witnesses” often pop up without any notice at all; discuss their feelings
about the fairness of the process, how they see your marriage as an outsider
who doesn’t know you, and the desirability of you moving out, sort of sort of,
an oped as they see it. For this is what passes for justice; yes, across NSW & not just at the Local Court
at Byron Bay (so pass the dutchie to the left hand side, dude). The AVO is then
itself used as an instrument of fraud and bullying. So, for example:
(i)
It’s intimidation now to exercise any other
right at all - Post the interim AVO, unable to raise concerns about the
quick sale of your house without your consent, you write to Roseanne’s real
estate agent saying that as the person who paid for the property out of pre
matrimonial earnings you own equitable title - and don't want a sale. You state
that you will be taking advice from a "top QC" to stop the sale pre
auction and acting on it, “if lawful”. In response the conveyancing lawyer
writes to you advising you that the agent is "intimidated that she won't
get her fee" and that seeking legal advice from a QC // SC is "very
intimidating to me indeed” (intellectually, for a conveyancer, this is probably
factually correct, have you seen some of these SC’s – some are males, like ,
like, over 5 foot 7 tall, and middle aged , with beer guts, and are “learned in
the law” a concept that’s scary indeed to a demented low level conveyancer). Thus,
if you persist the conveyancer herself will
seek to “extend the AVO”. (Do you now
understand why “intimidation, as perceived” is just a nutty thing to lock
people up on ? Do you now understand why the association of real estate agents
fees with domestic violence fortifies community incredulity that this is a scam
industry ? One Sydney law firm says that complaining about the AVO itself being
fraudulently procured is, itself, “clear
harassment”. (Just fascistic). Apparently tempered by “reasonableness” but that
means spending money on lawyers, who just don’t know, whether the others
lawyers assertions are nutty or what. All self help remedies are dead,
apparently, so pay lawyers. What an environment. Beam me up, Mr Scott.
(ii)
You can’t take anything from the house
because
that may stop it being sold -
try to collect your bed while The Good Wife is selling the matrimonial home.
But you won’t be allowed to remove your own bed from the family home because
that’s “harassment as regards the sale”. The order says “can’t reside”, but she
says “all visits, with or even by your friends alone, are harassment, even if
I’m not there”. Bitter Germanic control
freak types just love this law- it’s a sword, no longer a shield. Who said AVOs
were about house beautification? Well, they are in practice, hence the public
thinks Angry Vengeance Orders are “a nutter’s charter”. As futile as this
system is you must abide by its failure to address the underlying issues and
dwell only on symptoms. They have your bed, they have all the family cash and
aren’t obliged to share it for 2 years, you don’t have a place to sleep, and
you must apply for your bed in the Family Court (way too busy) and recall in
exact detail what your items of property were. Rest assured, she won’t find the
items, although oddly your mates may do so if they inadvertently spill the
garbage bin, say each week, and sort through your (now drained) Louis Roederer
Cristal shampoo bottles. It’s a far cry from protecting indigents from being
belted in shelters, but that’s what “intimidation” means if you are middle
class and the lawyers aren’t being directed to go via the Family Court.
(iii)
The magistrate thinks that in order to
defend yourself you should go somewhere else - her lawyer had previously threatened eviction
but on different asserted facts for the same time period. You left that letter
in the house. It was written 96 days ago, hence the claim by Her
Punctiliousness that everything was “urgent” was quite daft- but the magistrate didn’t know that as
the letter was deliberately hidden.
Conveniently, the letter was also never shown to police so they didn’t
know there were 2 set of facts “in play”. The police asked her lawyer to be a
witness, and she was, but although obliged as an officer of the court to
disclose all relevant information, that rule is just never in fact enforced,
and the lawyer doesn’t see ethics as self-executing. So you ask her
Inquisitiveness for a 2nd property order to get it. Instead you are told,
incorrectly, that you need a Family Court order (another 6K, another court)
because the Local Court is “quite frankly, over worked, and this is a waste of
my time, haven’t I made it clear I am over worked, and this is not allowed by my Act”. Nutty. You
point out to the magistrate that just not what the law actually says, so
another order is (unhappily) given. But police are “just too busy to enforce
it”. So no defence. Ha ha. They say why bother as they aren’t proceeding now as
you are out anyway. The nanny state, having taken on a task, fails and fails,
and fails, every step of the way. You don't need to worship at the altar of the
late Ronny Ray Gun to understand that the most terrifying sentence in
the English language still is
“Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help”.
(iv)
Let the looting begin- Your wine
collection is “consumed” by Brother #2, for
justice via The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia,
is a long way off. AVO Land is utterly lawless. All your
sentimental family heirlooms will be “immediately lost”. Cops do nothing as
they are over worked. And you can do nothing. If you paid for the house and the
records are more than 20 years old they will be shredded with glee never have been in the house, ever. Ever. Prove
it. The bank in the US of A only keeps
records for 7 years and the guys you sold the business to 20 years ago aren’t
co-operative. Ha ha. Because in Family Law proceedings under the 75(2) rule you
then can’t prove you paid for the house. Brilliant. Remember this is a bully’s
charter- she can shred old financial records, drink all your wine collection,
give away clothing, destroy items of sentimental value like your fathers
toolbox, and the courts will sit by and do nothing as they are “too busy” with
the next target in the Vengeance queue.
The Wallopers can threaten to prove an AVO based on a 50.1% test and
allegations they can change without notice as witnesses introduce new incidents
and introduce more hearsay evidence of the same at anytime, again, without notice. Why is this fair to have no evidence
rules for police in asserting an AVO and yet proper evidence rules when the
very same order is flagrantly abused? For you must prove, beyond reasonable
doubt in a criminal setting, and subject to the rules of evidence that us adults use, that your ex brother in law drunk
the Leeuwin Estate collection that he had long coveted. While he lets out a
buuuuurp in your face, you can consider how balanced this is, and what “arguing
back, ooh possibly loudly” has to do with the consumption of entire collections
of Henschke Hill of Grace; or the destruction of valuable family heirlooms.
Indeed that’s why your friends think that domestic violence claims “ are almost
inevitably just an chasers scam- mate let me tell you that Mosman dinner
parties are replete with this shit, it’s a far king joke; just stay away from those sort of nutty sheilas
a 2nd time around is all you’ve learnt, ya big dummy”; and its commonly
called an Angry Vengeance Order.
(v)
Ask to see the court record and get a
written explanation from Her Meticulousness-. “Look, who were you again
? It’s been 6 months so it’s 175 AVOs
later. I can’t remember. So ok now I will look at the evidence as you said you
are off to the Judicial Commission and that’s an exercise in proctology for any
judge, as they have outsiders. Uh oh, it transpires that I had evidence you
didn’t get that day. An extra witness statement, or 2, and being the only one I
scribbled on and there it is in the Court file.
Whoopsy, but a “mere filing error”. Yes arguing loudly is not a crime,
but I was possibly right that it she was feeling persecuted by you and that is “intimidation” for the purposes of a 3 minute
interim AVO hearing. Got it- dummy
? You see AVOs aren’t a criminal matter,
they are a matter of “apprehension”, as asserted in 3 minutes, and with no evidence produced until
that time, and an order sought that was changed 3 hours before it was issued.
And it’s apprehension, not paranoia. Apprehension. Not paranoia. I said it’s
apprehension. Got it ? Of course it is. Of course it is. She was as scared as
any librarian would, um ….oh, 14 stone marketing manager would be. Sure, it
looks like not all the evidence was read but I am a Magistrate and I am
reasonably sure that I read the front bit though, so what’s your problem? Look,
okay, yes the evidence presented in the case , on the version I had read, um,
um, yes sure, um yes you are right, it er, referred throughout to “Greg” the name of
another witness’s husband, not you- the Person of Interest (POI). (Maybe “John
Reese” was the POI after all ??) Oh well, I did think that such a “minor issue of precise identification” would
“ get fixed at the final hearing”. The mistake was “probably a formatting error”
because your wife’s friend just got confused. That is confused. She was
confused – sure they prepared their evidence together. Which causes no issues
for me- the statements are close is all. Got it ? Look. Confused, I said. It’s apprehension,
not paranoia. Got it ? And confusion may arise with apprehension. Got it ?
Anyway it’s apprehension about someone. Not confusion. Apprehension. Got it ?
Sure, not apprehension about the POI, so it transpires in due course, but
apprehension about someone called Greg. Or William in one part. It’s not a
precedent with errors in it -got it ? And it’s apprehension, not paranoia. Got
it ? Good. So we are agreed on that surely
? Right ? I mean yes, I mean I understand now that you say it was exasperation
and she says intimidation; but surely that could have been sorted out at a
final hearing, what’s your problem, just what’s your problem ? It was an
interim measure sir, interim. Frankly if I had to read all the evidence, I mean
all the evidence, all of it, and allow any contrary evidence at all, then I
would get macular degeneration as well as intimidation. What do you mean read
the Act and apply the law as written? Why ? I am busy. Its about getting
couples to stop yelling. And look, you
agreed inside 4 minutes that what I gave you was reasonable, well you consented
to an order, so what’s your problem ?
Got It ? Consent with duress, menaces, no lawyer and no notice looks like
consent to me. Look it’s all about prevention, okay, okay. I mean everyone does
it, what’s this idiots problem? Men are just too angry, and they don’t feel the
vibe of the thing. Who is this idiots lawyer ? Self represented. Typical. Just
typical. Look, I have a cocktail party
starting in 45 minutes and I must say that I have quite a few Greg Smith jokes
to tell, stupid Liberals, and the other
magistrates always love those jokes. I am sure you are wrong and I am right, as
ever”.
(vi)
Your barrister will not venture a view about
where the AVO stops and starts. She is concerned that the judge you had
was, frankly, none too bright, and once mentioned to her while they were at Uni
together that he thought “Dennis the Constitutional Peasant” was actually a
legal documentary, not a comedy skit. Your barrister says after the grant of
the interim order that you must “simply appear to be not unreasonable"
because she can't figure out what “intimidation” means if you pursue your right
to injunct, or even attend house auction, or bid. Ask police permission is the
safest way in this environment – you need written government permission for
everything. Fascistic stuff. Can I send an email ? Maybe if it’s not “too
strong-and focuses on collecting the kids” How many can I send ? Don’t know , as
there is also an argument that a volume of email can be harassing, we just
don’t know. Best to communicate everything via the lawyers, although you can
send say 2 a week, but none to her “I won’t cooperate as I am playing to the weaknesses
and slowness of the Family Court emails”. So maybe send one. But maybe go to
jail. Look she has perjured herself before about how “traumatised dialogue
makes me”, it’s so confronting, so do you dare? Blue line safety is let her do
what she wants.
(vii)
In all this chaos, the ever ethical real estate
agent will take one look at the D.A.F. lawyers and spot an opportunity
just too good to miss. So she will sell the family house during the school
holidays with 2 bidders, the names of which she won’t tell you as you may
disrupt the sale, under the agreed reserve, as you aint on title you duffer
because you were concerned about asset protection rules. The real estate agent
is ecstatic to place the property with a good client at a "market clearing
price" (you know, the kind of "market clearing price" that beef
attracts in Jakarta during Ramadan). The
Family Court is just way too over whelmed to intervene and set clear standards
for maximising value on property sales. Your wife puts the cash in her name
claiming to be "an honest person", but eventually agrees to a deposit
into a lawyers controlled moneys account as you do seek an injunction. The sale
gives a 9 month rent free period to the wife and is closed below the agreed
reserve as the wife is the registered owner and ignores your protestations on
value. The reality is that you spend money on lawyers to communicate with your
spouse as everything else is “or may be unreasonable” and thus “might be intimidation
of some kind”.
(viii)
What she didn’t tell the pavolvian dogs-
The opposing family lawyer now has a personal animus towards you (yes it
happens, as there are no rules) and blurts out in mediation that the AVO was
sought “because you are like the cloned love child of Gerald Henderson and Andrew
Bolt, totally, totally , unreasonable, and your emails to me are rude, you are
rude to me, I am a Senior Family Lawyer, and you argue with me, and I will not
be challenged, thus we had to get the AVO”. Whoops. The statement is not
admissible as it’s a statement made in the heat of the federal mediation. Take
up lots of time and divert from your divorce while you are forced to spend days
in Local Court “appearing” even though it’s a civil matter. Well it is, well it
isn’t.
(ix)
Families can’t be complex; the system can’t cope with that-
There are women who suffer genuine domestic middle class violence- no doubt
about it. And some of it’s hidden; or
they don’t have the courage to act immediately. Yet it’s also the case that The
Menopausal Book Club finds re-enactments of the Salem Witch Trials reasonably
easy stuff to get worked up about after the 3rd glass of Chateau de
Chasselas. But in 3 minutes, like, who cares ?
Ignore money owed, sexual issues, reasons to lie, what friends have
never seen, just focus on rent a mob. Blind Frederica can see the cops are
suited to dealing with existing criminals but w-w-w-wobble all over the shop
when it comes to – as they call them- “middle class, um, family law matters
really and I far king didn’t join the force to do this shit, mate, it sucks
taking kids away from their dads, just because
she can’t control her temper; and shit , you see lots and lots of this stuff”.
(x)
Who let the dogs out, who, who, who-
there is no real mediation with AVOs as they are underfunded by the state
government, who are keen on gesture politics, not on resolving matters. In an
arbitrage AVO the wife may see an angry husband. He sees frustration with her unreasonableness
and the police see not much at all apart from what they are told. The result is
no one settles in family law matters. Trust disappears. In any event all the
lawyers wink at each other and know the AVO was a “arbitrage verballing AVO”. Yeah
, fault based divorce is back all over again. God Bless those magistrates. So what
does the client do ? The “blue line rules” apply, so your AVO barrister says,
its just being precautious. That’s code for all contact must be via short emails or via
the family lawyers for 9 months while the kids are in free-fall. Hence, to be
safe, paying $220 for the kids netball fees is now an exercise that must be
negotiated between the lawyers at $ 400
per hour. Each. Consequently you don’t
need to be Ronald Coase to work out that kids drop out of sport and after school
classes. Inter parental distrust is maximised at the very time it should be managed.
The marital break down will take the maximum 2 years to resolve because of the
deeply bogus AVO claims about yelling and the 3 minute diaries of the
processing junkies. The lawyers love AVOs but there is no AVO Industry, you
hear. They are just great scams cases, out of which everyone in the legal
profession gets to take conferences in Phuket together, often being on
different sides of AVO scams cases ,
yes okay with strikingly similar narratives, for different clients. So the
system may be wrong but it’s there to be “played” not reformed. And most certainly not disclosed. More Cloudy
Bay SSB, anyone ?
(xi)
You must operate in two forums -the
Federal Family Court can’t exercise jurisdiction to sweep up the matter into
the family courts purview as the police, not your wife, are the plaintiff (the
person who started the AVO case). State and federal laws clash, and no one is
cleaning up the philosophical clashes; nor directing traffic. Are verbal
arguments, no matter how bitter, arising at the end of a marriage best dealt
with via separation at state law, or via best resolved via a concentrated
process of mediation in the Federal system ? This is a time for dialogue; but AVOs
ensure instead its time for diatribe. Technically the AVO is cross referenced
in Family Court proceedings. But so pervasive are the AVO claims, and so
utterly inept are the magistrates hearing the AVO scam, that they are given
short shrift- although often more than the 3 minutes that they took to procure.
Family Court judges tend to regard AVOs for what they are worth- of zero
evidential value and in a long marriage, possibly just a real estate scam. However
lots of Federal Court time is taken up with arguing about the 3 minute processing,
ensuring the return of fault based divorce by allegations of “unreasonable
behaviour” being bandied about, and allowing the partner who bought the bogus
claims to entertain the Family Courts view that this is a reason to act as a
scofflaw in the face of requests for equal parenting time. AVOs are the
mechanism by which joint parenting has become optional. Do you now understand
why the AVO scam is so attractive- imagine if you could opt out of Income Tax
by alleging the ATO are bullies (I mean , they are)? Anyway as taxpayers we
support 2 judicial systems to go over the same issues, after one of them has
given up being sane and responsible, become a veritable recruiting centre for
Fathers4justice, and taken the time to
apply the law as it was intended. It’s a high price we all pay for judicial
slactivism, but the real issue is the weird AVO Act itself.
(xii)
Your kids are not “alright”, Ms Moore-
Your barrister will tell you not to be in the same room as a spouse who has
already given perjured evidence unless you have a lawyer present or witnesses
willing to appear, due to the “chilling effect” of verballed evidence in AVOs,
and “most magistrates are just daft political hacks- but don’t quote me on
that”. That means hand overs of kids at a distance; dropping your sports coaching for if she ever “pops
along” that’s “an issue” (oddly the cops, inebriated witnesses, and lawyers don’t volunteer to fill this gap
and so sports teams fall to bits all over someone’s avarice); and limit
yourself at all other events. Her lawyer then immediately jumps to say you
aren’t spending time with the kids and so custody issues come into play. Long
term, your kids will indeed realise who
the bully really was but by that’s 5 years away and the lawyers and the
subservient Wallopers will have issued 180,000
more AVOs by that point. You can be most certain that they don’t review
their errors or want to be responsible for even one them. A warped social
experiment no one can control and no one takes responsibility for. So can you
see the kids even if they aren’t “protected” by the order ? Well, maybe. But
your ex will dominate all their time, and you can spend $20K sitting in
the Family Court queue because of course it’s all outside the sphere of the
Local Court that awarded the AVO. And if you do try to see your kids your ex is
likely to unleash yet another tsunami -maybe 40 or 50 – claims this time. For, of
course, you run the material risk that you get allocated the same delightful
magistrate, who while twirling her hair for 2, or 3, or hey maybe 4 full minutes
this time, will extend the order to your children and for yet another 9
months, or 3 years, or whatever, as there is no period. Heck, the only one
thing you can be assured of: the magistrate will be just too overwhelmed that
day as well. Cloudy Bay Semillon
Sauvignon Blanc, anyone ?
(xiii)
The verdict of the Court of Talk Back Radio
is clear : the 2007 Act is now widely referred to as “The Nutters Charter”. That’s its
street name these days. It’s a legal maze. So what happens if your kids call
you that she is screaming, and you go racing
into your old house to save your kids when they are being belted in a drunken
rage? Well that is probably a breach of an AVO - say some barristers. The
reasoning being that you do have the option of ringing 1800-Dunking Donuts.com
and asking Sheriff JW Pepper for a vee hickle dispatch; for there is no
explicit “necessity defence” in the 2007 Act, as there is elsewhere if it were
criminal law, and thus you may well be incarcerated
if you have that 3 minute special Interim Order against you by the Red Queen.
Look, this is manifest legal twaddle. Most judges just aren’t this weird. In
any event just save your kids: and if some Ms Justice Kumbaya dares incarcerate
you for pulling them away from a drunk, well, a night in lock up to protect your
kids’ is worth it no matter how batty and uncertain the Act is. Let The Divine
Miranda from The Daily Tele, ably assisted by good old Jonesey, Piers, and
Pricey, “provide meaningful constitutional counter balance to judicial excess ”
so as to “deal to“ any wacky-backy
leftist control freaks gifted
juristic savants. But it shows how especially
silly the unvarnished AVO regime is, that such views are genuinely held by
barristers. That AVOs are used to batter kids away from prying eyes is just
seen as “part of the AVO game”. As a
community we ignore female on child violence and it’s not as if the 3 minute
Judicial Wunder Kinders will ever
inquire about that. But, oddly, 3 months
of being “featured hourly” on Joneseys show
has a strange way of making the recalcitrants, well, “sober as a judge “. Pat (O’Shane) him on the head- onya, Jonesey;
bright shining constitutional bulwark of the airwaves: good to have, as all the rest have crumbled
in a big heap.
Whoops: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3601412.htm. Ok; but does
Jonesey deserve criticism; or an AVO ? Sure, which lovely little magistrates going to
do that then ? Joneseys words would get him an AVO if said directly.
(xiv)
The rule of lawyers- So which brain
dead, Eddie Obeid sycophant MP, voted for this parallel universe to be enacted
in this manner? Well actually not even
those dolts, you see no one consciously did. This is about inevitable litigation
creep and thus the chilling prospect of overnight jail (“on an interim basis,
sir”), on meandering legislation about “anti-social behaviour, well as alleged”,
with a low standard of "alleged proof", and no agreement on policy
objectives – its the very sort of bullying effect that Biff the Lawyer On The Other Side seeks to wield. It works, you
unperson. You are toast, Winston Smith as “2+2 does indeed = 5”. The legal proffesion , tribe , actually the
legal “gang” for that’s precisely what it is, has done their job to make you “intimidated about intimidation”. So where’s that Vicious Lawless Association
Disestablishment Act 2013 (Qld) , now you need
it?
BOSCAR: Sargent Schultz to the Rescue
BOSCAR
( the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research ), were tasked
with scrutinising the AVO regime and
reporting back to the pollies. You might think that given AVOs mess with the
most fundamental tenements of criminal law, there is widespread public disdain
for AVOs, the tsunami is well beyond what was envisaged by Jeff Shaw QC when he
proposed this Act, the persons they are asked to scrutinise, the NSW police force, would not rank highly for transparency or
competence, well, that you may get some thorough
, even thoughtful, analysis. Maybe sampling, rigorous regression, comparative stats- all undertaken
for your taxpayer dollar. Fat
chance, sunshine. Instead BOSCAR decided to issue a report
which addresses none of the lack of granularity as to the detail of interim
AVOs, the categories of unusually high numbers of failed applications, the
ratio of interim AVOs to divorce process benchmarks, percentage of actual interim AVOs declined, the rationale of
AVOs dropped when contested, what’s missed by odd levels of proof , nor even the
records kept of persons habitually involved as pests or rent a witnesses (er
someone hadn’t read para 3.87 of the Law Commissions October 2003 report;
pretty sloppy follow up, huh?). It’s all assertion. Possibly we think because
BOSCAR will not state the rather obvious truth- police record keeping of source
database info is way below appalling;
and BOSCAR can’t say this politely, or directly. So BOSCAR, in the mode of a
modern day Walter Duranty, have attempted to counter this shemozzle by focusing on actual physical violence, a small
proportion of AVO Land. Then, lacking source data, or the ability or
willingness to deep dive into even the easiest of online sampling, or develop a
discrete actual sample based on all persons involved, instead rely on a ”survey of the views of magistrates”. (Really;
don’t giggle). Which gives rise to some real concerns with how the NSW public
service can be taken even vaguely seriously in public policy analysis:
A.
Why
the views of magistrates ? These are the people who have scrupulously gone out
of their way to be the least knowledgeable persons in their own courtrooms.
Time after time, after time, its 3 or maybe 4 minutes of deliberation (what’s your name,
what font size, are there any typos on the front bit, etc.). And remember these are the people
chosen by adverse selection- the family lawyers want useful idiots, not
disclosure and a grilling in the family court for sole occupancy; that’s why it’s being dealt with by the lowest
level of the judiciary. Magistrates are time poor, intellectually soft, constitutionally
embarrassing, and disinterested. Professor Hunter, the only person to have done
the deep dive, has the only objective findings and these are at openly odds
with BOSCARs “oped pieces” . Other studies also run directly contrary to the
Boscar results- 74% of Queensland magistrates believe that AVOs are habitually
abused as a litigation device in family law proceedings: Carpenter, Currie and
Field (2001) 3 Nuance Review 21. In any
event , magistrates don’t see 45% of the control group as most contested cases
are dropped, and never ever see what AVO abuse occurs when issued. So what possible insight can “I consciously
want to be fact lite” Magistrates possibly provide ? Sure, ask Magistrates about the brand of
paper clip they would use to put the
parts of the order together once handed it by their chums inside the Police Farce.
But don’t seek their views on matters of substance- Family Court judges give the Magistrates “3
minute “findings of fact” short shrift (hon Justice T. Altobelli
(1998) 13 Australian Family Lawyer 12),
and the public think magistrates are way
out of control. In any event these
exercises in judicial slacktavism, with their attendant negative
feedback loops, are not an objective
benchmark.
- Is there any group that would seek
to reduce their own work load by
25% (the amount of time that AVOs take up in the life of a local
court??). Of course magistrates’
predilection for, and tolerance of, 3 minute servings of interim justice
is the very problem, not the basis for dispassionate analysis. It’s a bit
like Paul Keating asking a customs judge if tariffs were a great idea, or
as objective as interviewing Julian Burnside QC in 2008 to see if a softer line post
Tampa would have any impact on the levels of people smuggling.
Well-meaning people can be very decent, very smart, very competent, and yet very innumerate, very, very much
focused on the issue de jour, and very much hopelessly naïve. Indeed history teaches
us that judges can be as much of a threat to liberty as any bureaucrat. We
have juries, you will recall, because the yeomen just didn’t trust the
judges.
- We re ran the BOSCAR approach,
this time talking to other judges off the record about the magistrates. Of
the 8 contacted 2 said it was a hard role and were sympathetic the magistrates faced an
impossible task in too many cases; 3 said the magistrates are doing an atrocious
job that’s an embarrassment and
causes too may negative feedback issues in the Family Court; 1 said they lack resources but should do
something to correct their system – which she caustically calls the “sushi
train of justice” approach- (they swallow whatever is put in front of them
on the conveyor belt); the reply of 1 former federal court judge is
unprintable as it makes the Men’s Rights lads seem like softies; although the remaining judge did add
“they can’t be criticised as judges because they are not, in 3 minutes,
making any attempt to carry out a judicial function”.
- Why not do direct sampling ? The internet is making data collection
easier, not harder. Surely BOSCAR can employ some numerate 18 year olds
during the school holidays - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwQ4KAIykq4
- If this is what BOSCAR passes off
as adequate criminological analysis in public, what sort of gibberish do you think they
vomit up to those none too bright professional pollies in private? (Why
didn’t Tony Fitzgerald ever think of this approach in Queensland- rather
than inquire as to whether Joh and Russ were corrupt, why not send sample questionnaires
to the scone makers of Kingaroy who
elect them ? Opinion polls- really ? Gosh, why even bother with criminal stats
collection at all ?
In NSW “in
1987, a total of 1,426 orders were issued by NSW Local Courts. By 1998 some
22,000 orders were issued, a
fifteen-fold increase in just ten years “. But by 2013 it was 32,000 final
orders.
BOSCAR
Director Don Weddeburn, a well-regarded
public intellectual, stated that “ In
particular, concern has been expressed about the ease with which orders can be
obtained and the possible abuse of orders by persons involved in family
law matters. “ But that issue was then
substantively ignored by the folks he
hired for “Despicable Me 2”. All we know is that 33% of the survey had been
separated for 1-6 months and 29% for longer, before an order was sought. Some
78% of people against whom an order is issued had no legal representative. The
Family Court website does not contain data on the number of sole occupancy
orders granted, and BOSCAR doesn’t work out how many interim orders are being
rejected- i.e. are the magistrates doing any job at all? Cosy, huh ?
The Wedderburn
minions asserted in 2012 that : “Despite recent media reports claiming that
APVOs are overused and abused in NSW, the current study (sic) suggests that only a small proportion of APVO applications are
frivolous or vexatious in nature. Just one in ten NSW magistrates and
registrars surveyed in this research (sic) reported that they frequently deal
with frivolous or vexatious APVOs, while over two-thirds reported that these
types of matters never, rarely or only occasionally occur”. Really ? Is “only ten percent” supposed to be some mark
of success in 3 minutes ? What happened
to families involved – did they reconcile and was the AVO an impediment in
family law ? Did the individuals have any other AVO etc, criminal complaints,
and what was their social demographic ? What kind of magistrates spot the ten
percent in 3 minutes - the experienced
ones ? Were those spending closer to 4
minutes on each case, detecting more than their colleagues who spent 3 minutes
on average ? Are the Queensland
magistrates referred to above, likely to beat the NSW magistrates in
Magistrates State of Origin Match up 9 , because they are a lot more astute than the magistrates we get down south ? If NSW magistrates spent say 12 minutes
looking, would it be an exponential increase to 40% of all claims ? Is Fuctifino a small fishing village on the
Amalfi coast?
So how this
for a simple metric from our closet social proxy ? Not a great data extraction set but makes you
inquisitive:
|
Comps
|
Enactment of Domestic Violence regime
|
Court process
|
Initiated primarily by
|
Hearing time ( av. contested interim)
|
Child allocation rules in Family court
|
Population (m)
|
Domestic Violence Orders
000’s, pa)
|
Rate per 100K of population
|
Recourse to mediation
|
|
NZ
|
1995
|
Family , specialist
|
Spouse, police, but domestic only
|
c. 4 hours interim if contested
(and can be urgent) we are told
|
50-50; and tolerably quick
|
4.5
|
4
|
88
|
Frequent
Embedded in Family Court process
|
|
NSW
|
1997
|
Local, claim to be constantly under
resourced
|
Police, spouse, Property Developer Whack jobs
|
3 minutes. Sometimes 4 minutes. Max. Always.
|
How dare John Howard reduce my legal
fees? . Long queue. No rules at all. Lots of frustration
|
7.2
|
25
|
344
|
S 21 infrequently
used . Magistrates very busy with many issues.
|
So you are
almost 4 times as likely to get a final domestic violence order in NSW than in
NZ? Mmmm; waddya reckon ? Four times more likely with 3 minute justice
screening. Gosh ?? Well, Boscar doesn’t know (and can’t be bothered
inquiring). Someone farted again in The
Kingdom of Denmark; you think ? And this is final orders, many of which people
don’t have resources to contest: we extrapolate interims at about 7 to 1.
It’s a very
crude data series for comparison but does raise issues for a deep dive
analysis. Either:
A.
NZ
has “weaker” laws/ (seems the opposite actually, as they have an anti-smacking
law for parents) . NZ doesn’t have a “claim arb “ epidemic, although nonphysical
intimidation is defined as violence .
B.
NSW
citizens are innately 4 times more violent (than “once were worriers”, maybe
not ?)
C.
Kiwi
Family Court Judges are less astute than our Marvellous Magistrates (hard to
keep a straight face on this one isn’t it? )
D. Less enforcement, better defence lawyers,
a smaller more heterogeneous community ,
and an adult constitution ? No evidence these factors are material, but
should be tested for, taking into account no social proxy analysis is ever
perfect. But NZ does, on its face, seem the closest comp to use. Any proper
study would also look further afield to
the UK, etc.;
E.
The
Federal Family Law Court queue causes the underlying problems. If this is
right, politicians and judges who won’t
enforce the Howard Law, but prefer to dither and load lawyers pockets with
cash, are a more significant cause of
family violence than any other factor (so do you think the pollies would pay
for Steve Levett to run the numbers; or would they rather Don Wedderburn’s “lovely
opinion surveyors” keep going ?). Mmmm.
AVOs
were modelled on UK ASBOs, though there are differences. Note that The UK, with
a population of 63 million, issues 4,000
ASBOs a year (and have Family Law Act orders for domestic disputes like DVOs-
numbers not ascertainable as public information). By way of contrast, NSW courts
vomit up 7,194 non domestic final AVOs a year- with a population of 7 million people. Doesn’t
that strike you as odd; we have one-ninth the population of the UK, but 16
times the comparable number of orders per head of population ? Those who invented the Liverpool kiss, and the
“Born Fighting” Scots, strike you as relaxed folks, do they? The Welsh , maybe
with the singing, but not their rugby team. ? Come on, pull the other one,
Cyril.
Or does this data
mean AVO legislation is doing a terrific job ?
We know domestic murder rates and
domestic per capita violence rates are stable to falling across the last 15
years in most jurisdictions, though smooth fit regression isn’t consistent.
Correlation seems stronger with economic prosperity than it does with the
existence of domestic violence laws. Moreover no case that has been made that
the weirdo regime we have in NSW, and throughout the country, has had any
impact at all on actual violence. One old
hand at the criminal stats game, as astute as Wedderburn, thinks it’s got all the usual
hallmarks of yet another passing moral panic. But even more importantly the
same results could in fact occur, without the need for family bitterness, and a
feeling that AVOs are a huge scam , if ,
for example:
1.
We
changed the Federal rules so that underlying parenting issues became easier and
quicker to resolve, and weren’t driven by the economic interests of the lawyer rentier class, but rather by children’s actual interests,
and were fast, efficient and perceived to be fair, so that people moved on “out
of the conflict zone” ; and
2.
The
State based judges tried to apply the AVO law the way it was actually intended
, rather than a back solve based on their limited resources and limited thoughts.
Most likely a transfer of jurisdiction into Family Courts seems sensible,
especially with a reduced workload due
to clear signposts for dealing with most property and parenting cases. The
Family Courts is looking at the same facts anyway- just not quickly.
The Policy Vacuum
One of the
original reasons for no fault divorce was to stop the 'embarrassment and
distress' of having to 'parade faults in public'. Oddly that’s what the AVO
Circus mandates
For the
latest Kali Fornication trends see also: http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/08/mccourt-divorce-201108.
Of course the
proponents will tell you that AVOs
aren’t vexatious-oops, save that some people have applied for 10 such
AVO orders
Or use them to stifle political
discussion
Or fix up disputes that are just better
left to publicans to sort out, over 3
beers, rather than magistrates
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/x-factor-judge-mel-b-takes-out-avo-against-top-cel/1603007/
See Professor
Parkinson’s synopsis of the Australian studies
The Information Asymmetry
If there are
71 AVOs a day, say 25% relate to long term marriages, the police error rate is at
least 10% (maybe 45%, ) the average house price is $750K in Sydney, and the
variance is a 10% loss of value on sale
(or lost rental) that’s an economic cost of about $ 340m per annum, and legal
fees (say $45m) . Someone pays for that. Why not the state via the police ?
Other civil plaintiffs who seek interim injunctions and fail, pay up for costs
and for damages. And it’s a cost of the
AVO regime being activated on 3- 4 minutes of evidence.
AVOs are not allowed to be published, so as to protect all
parties (many complainants however gleefully do tell everyone at the local
school that they can think of to slur you and justify their vengeance). As a
result of non-disclosure police, and (
because of course, there are none, ha, ha, ha ) dodgy lawyers who are
remarkably consistently involved,
benefit from a huge information asymmetry. Those who have been wrongly
“charged” (as police call it) with an AVO can’t contact each other to compare
notes as to how many scams these people you have never met before have pulled
off in their “divorce support groups”. So if
a class action against police were initiated via a website, the 32,000
persons issued with AVOs per annum could communicate anonymously in chat rooms (surely they all must be
“guilty” ,of course, because by not investigating police don’t take mistakes) .
One day someone nifty will build such a
website, collate the stats, and publish the dobbers identities. Or it should
cost $3K on freelancer.com.au
Boscar interviews will never pick up what AVOs are actually
being used for. Focusing in on the courts, especially with an uncritical eye is
a huge methodological flaw.
Should the public step in when there has been utter
regulatory failure by the judiciary, the Wallopers, and BOSCAR ?
It seems incredible in an age of information abundance that
police and BOSCAR cannot keep the most basic records as to why 45% of interim
AVOs don’t proceed. So we are currently building
a website with Google tools that will identify:
·
Length
of time you were in a relationship
·
Time
taken since your date of separation for such allegations for such allegations
to surface
·
The
names, contact details and identity of all AVO “witnesses” // dibber
dobbers (not yours)
·
Length
of interim hearing
·
Name
of complainants solicitor and contact details
Note to foreign readers: NSW has a history of extensive police
corruption and ineptness on a scale that puts it right up there globally.
Notwithstanding this there are no community policing boards, elections, nor
community dialogue via Chief Constables. Police report to politicians. Who are
even more corrupt. Baltimore without the
great TV industry really.
Transaction Costs – why are they never analysed?
To understand how quite limited the BOSCAR “insight” is, assume you are a plumber owed $400. Your
client doesn’t want to pay so fills in a standard AVO complaint form, hopefully
gets your name right, spending 40 minutes at the local cop shop alleging you
called them a See You Next Tuesday (maybe you did, in a 45 second altercation)
and they allege you will “get them” (you actually said blacklist them). As a
plumber you must pay $ 3000 to a lawyer to appear the first day for a 3 minute
interim hearing. The magistrate you get allotted probably won’t have time to read
the evidence against you and you will have to hang around court all day long as
there is no scheduling. The matter will
be held over. You will then pay another barrister another $ 3000 for another 7
minute appearance to set a date for a hearing. If you get a final hearing, you
will spend $10,000 for a barrister to defend you in a one day hearing. You will
take 3 days off work, and another 2 days preparing evidence for your defence.
The person who owes you the money will never turn up- as they are “ terrified”,
they say, of seeing you, as that’s “confronting” and “intimidating”. They pay
zero as the police run the case. If it ever gets to court in 9 month’s time the
Complainant will withdraw the case on the steps of the court, saying they now “feel”
safe. You will be told you need to spend $ 3000 to get your legal costs paid
and the chances of getting vexatious costs are remote as vexatious seems to
mean “regular abuse”, which often you don’t know about because no one knows who
is regularly abusing AVOs, as there is no central database ! It won’t be the
actual amount you spent, say 65% of that and the police don’t cooperate- they
ask you to go after the Complainant directly. But, of course, the Complainant was insolvent
in the first place so why bother, and may just issue another AVO for the hell
of it. Now, and yes this may strike BOSCAR as odd, but many plumbers still can’t
work out why spending $ 19,000 to collect $ 400 doesn’t make sense, so those idiot plumbers don’t bother defending
these interim AVOs. BOSCAR counts these events as a non-contested final AVO,
and adjusts an upwards trend line. Public choice theory kicks in and the police
get allotted government resources as this “epidemic” is growing and growing.
What else can their AVO officers do but meet targets on a first to file basis
? The lawyers are delighted, quite
delighted. The magistrates tell BOSCAR that Sergeant Schulz is a very funny guy,
and they say “nothing, I know nothing” when surveyed by BOSCAR. The plumber
just never collects the bill: its all too hard and the bill isn’t capable of
being collected by anyone else. Or it gets paid in 18 months’ time. Is this a
you beaut payoff or what ? That’s why you pay plumbers up front these days.
Assume next that your dads neighbour then belts her kids. Being
an older Australian, not a dobber, he inquires to see if they are okay. Idiot. His
neighbour then requests an AVO as she is quite terrified your dad will report
child abuse. But she omits that bit, simply saying he is coming on her property
in an unwelcome manner, and her kids are terrified, and she is nervous, whoops
intimidated. Prevention, it’s all about prevention. Your dad has to spend $
12,000 if he wants to clear his name. Oddly, he also doesn’t bother to spend
the money but self defends. The magistrate is over whelmed and suggests community
mediation. The inebriated neighbour then withdraws the AVO, and your dad agrees
to back off. All the way off. But BOSCAR
counts this as an interim AVO that doesn’t proceed further. The police get more
funding for this “epidemic” as well, and
simply fill in a form about “more active police intervention and community
based crime fighting”. The kids have 7 missing front teeth instead of 2 but the
AVO Industry just points to the empowerment statistics.
Next, two parents have a 45 second stoush at the kids water
polo event last weekend. She is a drunk. But she feels intimidated about being
called a drunk. Defamation costs her money and she would have problems. So an interim
AVO issues on a first to file basis because its offensive or intimidating, no
point in 3 minute demarcation. Gotcha!!! A law based on symptoms, not causes.
Finally your niece is stalked by a nutter with a criminal
record of peeping offences. She gets an AVO. But its never enforced as police
resources are stretched- 2 officers in middle class marital disputes, one at
the cronut shop, one dealing with plumbers, another serving even more AVO
summons. They need more funding from the pollies- so they say. They haven’t got
time, as a family lawyer (or as their
management jargon now calls them , the “client”) is ringing them with a new case of marital yelling.
This is what happens daily (about 8 AVOs a court per sitting day).
Can you now understand just why AVOs are so widely abused in marital breakdowns
when tensions are just so high ? And the payoffs are just so lucrative, without
appreciable downside? It’s a loopy system.
All about hurt feelings. Meanwhile police do not enforce the law against actual
crims, and local school bbq’s are full of stories about just how totally inept
the “local Labor Party magistrate”, as she is now called, is. Interim preventative justice, my arse
(apologies for intimidating any proctologists with that last comment).
Kultural All References
Help, help, Dennis is being repressed, which just shows the
violence inherent in the system :
4.
As smart as Rommel - If
served with an AVO “summons” under The Nutters Charter dial 1800-lawyer ASAP
and be afraid, very, very afraid. The spectre of an AVO drastically impacts
future employment questions, business funding, kids sports coaching, possibly some
international travel depending on foreign law rules, the shadow of the Gillard
“panic, panic, panic, no violence allegations of any kind” rules for
co-parenting under Federal Family Law (even if the order is about the spouse,
not the kids), lots of time in court fighting it , lawyers fees galore, and of
course, your reputation. So retreat, tactically, fast. The legal advice you get
will be to do what they call “blue line it” which means zero connection is the
only safe response to verbal bullshit : just resign from all your community
activities, sports and school committees and don’t go to joint functions, as that’s
the practical impact, not the black letter of the order, because “intimdation”
and verballing mean nothing. The dobbers and drunks won’t step up and god knows
it’s hard to get community involvement. But that’s the price of “dodgy claim
justice”. And yes, as a matter of L.A.W. , the blunt trading of an ex-wife’s, state
based, AVO assertions against dads Federal Family Law Act property / custody
rights and taking cash, is a waste of police resources, a perversion of the
course of justice, which is of course a crime by her. But its done all the time
as the wife just “takes her time to balance perspectives on life”, which is not actual lying to Ploddy, and thus
compromise deals are done in a number of ways, all with no downside to the
person laying the police complaint.
Indeed a complainant can proffer a view, indeed even sincerely hold a
view, and still compromise. Sure they can. Or change their mind that once out
of the house the threat of intimidation has since receded. Of course, of
course, of course they can. So the complainant just says that, while they had a
real concern at the time of the interim order, that at the time the final order
is to be made they no longer have a concern as to safety (omitting to mention
she has 1, 300,000 more reasons to feel
safer at that later point). If the police were (ever?) to prosecute, unlike in
the case of false molestation charges relating to specific acts, they would
have to establish “false reasonable feelings” and that the “linked narrative in
light of evolving concerns” was insincerely held. By mummy. Beyond reasonable
doubt. Hah Hah Hah. Team Nigella has wet knickers with this, it’s just so funny.
And lets face it- are you really going to put the mother of your kids in jail ?
Just how will that fix things ? So the scams just grow bolder and bolder.
Magistrates, more over whelmed than ever, read even less than before. DAF Coppers
are busy being played yet again by scum bag
litigators in the next property fraud assisting the next middle class
victim of domestic mass murder, hitting ,abuse
, arguing, not agreeing with their demands , yelling back and arguing intimidation
ish thingy ish, not obeying my orders, who also has a memory triggered, gosh just
after seeing the very same lawyer, and
also after a 20 year marital break down. Short of lies on a witness stand, it’s
just not pursued. And never really has been; hence the dice is not rolled as it’s
fixed. In any event credible and
well-timed AVO threats are little bewdys, paying off in spades without the need
to run any gauntlet that Ploddy may one day realise they are but neophyte pawns
in a much bigger chess game. The easy way to retreat is that you give her a
bank cheque and she writes you a letter inviting you back to the family home
dated 9 pm today, but first you hand her your letter dated 10 am tomorrow
declining that lovely offer. Dumb as F
Cops can’t do a thing and are so overwhelmed handing out 71 AVOs each day, so
do nothing. But as game theory will predict, and as happens every day in
Gotham, the vindictive or exasperated spouse rolls the dice “interim order” .
Personally, if I got served with one of these Arbitrary Vehemence Orders, I
wouldn’t “do an Assange “; rather I
would surrender to the CIA very early in this winner takes all, no downside”
game”. For if you fight an AVO the
magistrate won’t bother to listen, don’t read the law, don’t have time as they
are really just traffic courts in disguise,
and anyway your ex-wife will be given the kids in the interim. So sure,
AVOs are a very often used to commit fraud, and the protections to ensure they
aren’t have never ever worked. Some men do revenge porn and some women do revenge
AVOs: so just roll over. Should you be forced to proceed by the cops, and its
unusual in yelling cases as most are held over for 6 months while you separate,
then in the 5-7 hours of a contested AVO hearing the court will fumble to
comprehend issues of provocation,
bipolarity or vengeance; struggle to apply modern community standards
as regards foul language (as such language is not used inside the Mosman Bridge
Club, but, um, er, has been used by
Kevin 07). The court will see a snapshot of assertions from 60 days of a 20
year marriage, and the darlings on the bench will “never, ever, ever” get to view The Wayang Puppeteers, far less
meet them. And of course it’s a one way gamble for the law has no effect on the
complainants even if they are as loaded
as Gina Rinehart. A Tolkienesque
analysis of good v evil that is much too simplistic in the real world; and the
law looks at the issue not on a reasonable person test, but rather from the perspective
of the individual in their circumstances being harassed, and needing protection
at the time the final order is issued.
So everyone is fragile- sure they are. Women see bullying; men express
complete exasperation. The fact is that in relation to “intimidation” there is no “reasonable person test” because,
as is recorded in that famous legal case of Kramer v Kramer, the views of
“reasonable men” and “reasonable women “
are poles apart, evolving, and thus outcomes are wholly arbitrary.
Men and Anger
(Dustin Hoffmann): “You
can’t have Billy (the child) back; you walked out on him 7 months ago”. ( Meryl
Streep) : “Aaagh, stop trying to bully me”.
5.
I did not have sex with that women- Lawyering
up quickly, no matter how utterly
devastated you are about how someone can scam you like this at the end of a
long marriage, is critical time wise. Once you have been screwed by the
magistrate with ADD, your options in fighting an AVO are to roll over, which
many do, or more properly to file your defence ASAP. This is mandatory if you
want to go ahead (you should) and it should be filed within 2 weeks. You need
an equal number of witnesses, initially voluntary then otherwise by
subpoena, so as to bog down police
resources. The vast bulk of “AVO
intimidation arbitrage trading” cases don’t proceed to a full hearing. So look
like you will have 5 days in court and start issuing subpoenas for considerable
information disclosure and the cops will collapse in a heap because they have
more AVOs to issue, and the law is so dodgy that it allows the coppers to “wait
and see “ for c. 9 months that there are no flare ups- good behaviour bonds with
none of the constraints. A good “knock out in 90 – 180 interim days “defence
response will cost $15-35 K; will take control of the narrative on your break
down; set out your good character; document her history with Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome/ suicide/ mental health
problems/ confabulation occurrences ; expose that it is rent a mob from the
divorce support network, not her close friends, who are the providers of “evidence”;
detail the coterminous financial frauds she is committing by cash sweeping
accounts, demanding cash for the AVO to be dropped, etc.; deny point by point the weird hearsay of
the hopelessly imbibed pommy neighbour, whose claims should be met with enough dynamite to utterly
decimate reflect earnestly and honestly upon her credibility on the stand (if
the daughter of the witness had once said daddy bashed her and the case
proceeds you must make the case about the witnesses dysfunctional family-not about
you, so call her daughter as a witness against her, no matter how uncertain you
are about that child’s claim); and be backed up by truthful ambit recollections
by your close mates and their wives of what a nasty person your wife was and
how she had problems holding down a job and was a political bitch in her old
office. Vomit it up. If in doubt find some 16 year bitchy friends of your mates
daughter, buy them a starbucks, and ask
for traffic directions. Vicious, nasty, bitter and as low as the lowest common denominator on the other side- welcome
to girl world. Pretty much any sort of counter allegation is fine as your
lawyer will fillet it, and you do want to temper it so you aren’t seen as angry
at all times, and so the Friends of
Dolly Dunn don’t just proceed for the hell of it. But the best form of defence is offence, and
you do want some way in which your barrister, if the matter goes forward, can
spend time ensuring the case is really about whether there is a strong prima
facie case that the witnesses should be put in jail for perjury, and is
consistent with your ability to lay charges against them subsequently for
beating their own kids or whatever it is they have done, or being AVO Land allegations
of mis deeds you can slur them back with.
Mostly you will find a busy barrister who will delay matters to a time that
suits her diary, and by that time your ex- wife cant make a case that she is intimidated,
or you will have paid her off. Whatever , she got you evicted. You need to not
argue at all after that. Doesn’t matter if you are right or reasonable- it’s a
9 month cooling off period that allows the person who filed first to determine
how much you see the kids and what cash she can extort. But do remember that
while the AVO goes away in 9 months you still have one hell of a marital fight
ahead of you and have lost control of the kids already in those 3 minutes. Bitter stuff, AVOs; that being their very
purpose and effect in divorce. The police only check AFTER the interim order is given as to whether any
witness is compromised , or a convicted felon, or what the relationship of the
various parties are – it’s hopelessly inadequate analysis and a serious embarrassment to the designers of the 2007 legislation
that the safeguards they proposed have massively failed- weekly. That’s why
many people just buy out their AVOs with cash on a side deal with the rapacious
ex sister in law, and give into the fault based blackmail arbitrage opportunities
that AVOs enable; for if you fight the additional 20% of the property she
wants, you won’t see the kids for some considerable period while the AVO is
“processed’. If you proceed AVOs are a hybrid civil and criminal procedure.
Criminal in the sense that the police run them, you must turn up to court all
the time, and you can get threatened with jail on any issue on a whim by bogus
allegations from bogans. Civil in the sense that the level of proof is as low
as it can be so as to encourage and
reward police incompetence and inability to investigate a smidgeon, and deprive
you of any defences you would have under criminal law. It’s a weird regime. Any
let’s be frank- the ADD magistrates are so hopelessly brutal and inept that no
one knows how to de fang marital arguments thereafter. Family law mediators
can't mediate the AVO regime because it’s unethical, and in any event the
police are the nominal plaintiff. More sand in the wheels.
Our
take- not advice- for what it’s worth: 1. Move straight out of the house before
the 3 minute hearing (you haven’t got any snowballs chance anyway at the
hearing, its sham justice) into a hotel
and argue that the order is thus irrelevant
- save yourself hassle and $$ 50K. 2. Ask the magistrate to move the wife out
instead of you under S 20(2) c and offer
to pay for that if needs be 3. Lawyer up asap 4. Sue all the witnesses for fraud straight
away and get retaliatory AVOs by visiting another police station 5. Ask the
magistrate for S 21 mediation 5. Get ready for one hell of a family court
dispute 5. More for a vexatious costs hearing 6. Keep a diary of
everything. 7. Ring everyone at your
local school and call the witnesses drunks or whatever is true, having your
mates suggest community jobs they can do by en email to everyone involved. Use
language like “hugely contested and most unusual evidence given” as you cant
call then spivs and frauds, even if true, as that intimidation, maybe, but
everyone will know they are low lifes . 7. Get your mates there with a moving
truck before the hearing anyway.
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