IMAGINE IT being argued that citizens be denied the right to go where they please because the freedom to travel also benefits hijackers and terrorists! Would anyone give a moment's thought to abolishing the liberties of the vast majority on the basis that a few wicked people will inevitably benefit from these freedoms? Anyone stupid enough to make such a proposal would be laughed into oblivion, writes JOHN WATERS
Yet, to perpetuate the denial of rights essential to the relationships between fathers and children, you only need to suggest that changing the law would confer rights also on men who become fathers as a result of committing rape. In this connection, uniquely, such an argument is not merely treated as reasonable but allowed to define the position of society and its laws.
On RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland on Wednesday, the president of the Law Reform Commission (LRC), Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness, again alluded to this argument, suggesting it as part of the explanation for why, in its just-published consultation paper on family relationships, the LRC has retreated from its proposal of 27 years ago that guardianship be extended to all fathers as of right. Mrs Justice McGuinness was not challenged on this or on her claim that the LRC in this paper seeks to deal with the changed reality of Irish society.
In 1982, the number of children born out of wedlock was a tiny fraction of what it is now. The LRC seeks to reinstate the thinking of the middle of the last century and expects to be congratulated for tackling the realities of today.
In debate with Mrs Justice McGuinness on Tom McGurk’s programme on 4FM, I pointed out that most of the commission’s recommendations amount to fiddling with words.
The consultation paper proposes, for example, that guardianship be redefined as “parental responsibility”, a term Mrs Justice McGuinness says places more stress on “what parenting is actually about” (rather than, one infers, on the rights of fathers). The implication is that fathers who seek parenting rights are in some sense not being “responsible”. They need to be reminded that parenting is about the needs of children.
In many years writing about this, I have not met one father who did not understand that the purpose of pursuing parenting rights was to give of himself to his child or children. There is no other point to what is called “fathers’ rights”.
Fathers who ask to be treated as human beings by the State are not looking for children to play football with on Saturday afternoons – they are seeking to do what creation requires of them: to love their children.
The proposed changing of the language of family jurisprudence is therefore not merely a shallow attempt at window-dressing, but also an insult directed at fathers, implying that they need to be reminded of their responsibilities by a State doing everything possible to prevent them executing such responsibilities as a function of their natures.
At the moment, to obtain joint guardianship, an unmarried father must either get the consent of the mother and have this rubber-stamped by a court; or, if the mother refuses, apply to a court.
The mother can contest this guardianship application citing “the best interests of the child”.
The LRC now recommends that there be “a statutory presumption that a non-marital father be granted an order for guardianship (parental responsibility) unless to do so would be contrary to the best interests of the child or would jeopardise the welfare of the child”.
It is difficult to see any benefit to fathers or children of such a change: if a mother wishes to obstruct her child’s father, he will still have to go to court and prove that his involvement with his child is not contrary to that child’s “best interests”, whatever that might be deemed to mean.
Much space is given in the LRC document to the issue of access-rights for members of extended families of children in non-marital situations. But nowhere is it acknowledged that problems in this context almost invariably arise from the fact that there is no equality to begin with. Parental grandparents or other family members are usually deprived of contact with children because the mother is able to prevent relationships developing between the child and the father and/or the father’s family, either by obtaining court orders or flouting with impunity orders permitting what is called “access”.
Mrs Justice McGuinness emphasised in our discussion that this is a consultation paper, and that submissions are invited from interested parties who may have other proposals to make. She suggested I might make a submission.
For two reasons, I don’t intend to. One, I am a journalist, not a political activist, and my contributions to this discussion can readily be accessed by the commission – if it is interested. Two, based on the disingenuousness, weasel-wording and ideological subtext of this consultation document, I have zero confidence in the prospect of the LRC tackling the industrialised abuses of human rights perpetrated in the name of Irish family law.