| Issue |
Recommendation |
Judicial Education
- Judges are given false information as part of their “education” in judicial bias seminars.
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- Revisit the material in Judicial bias seminars. Recognize the long-standing, historical discrimination against fathers in child custody law.
|
Custody
- Judges overwhelmingly favour women in custody decisions, according to a study completed by the Department of Justice in 1989.
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- Create a program of affirmative action in custody decisions to help fathers raise their children post-divorce.
- Add material to the judicial bias seminars to reflect the difficulties faced by fathers and the costs of being a non-custodial parent.
|
Child Support
- Child Support Formulas, developed without fathers’ input, are unbalanced, prevent or reduce access by economic means. There is no recognition of non-custodial parents costs. Judges exasperate the situation by treating these formulas as the bare minimum, when they are an exaggeration.
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- Measure and publish judgment results on child support, by income and gender.
- Establish a “citizen judicial review board” to evaluate judge performance and conduct.
|
Sentencing
- Judges routinely sentence men more harshly than women for the same crimes. The Joudrie, Tran, Homolka cases are some of the more well known examples.
|
- Measure and publish sentencing results
- Establish a “citizen judicial review board” to evaluate judge performance and conduct.
|
Ex Parte Orders
- Judges routinely grant ex-parte orders that throw men out of their homes or cut them out of their children’s lives based solely on unsubstantiated testimony by an estranged spouse.
|
- Measure and publish statistics on all ex-parte orders
- Establish a “citizen judicial review board” to evaluate judge performance and conduct.
|
| Cost and Accessibility of Legal System |
Allow video and audio taping of court proceedings by litigants, to make the examination of testimony easier. |
