Hi Everyone,
Duty Counsel just left Chambers and he pulls me aside. As we sit across from each other he tells me that the judge has dismissed my case. I know this judge and what she did and didn’t do on Friday May 17, 1996. “You have to stick up for me.” Sadly he says, “There’s nothing I can do. The judge said it’s D.B.S.”
As I raise myself from my seat, I also raise my voice, “I know D.B.S. If you can’t stick up for me at least let me stick up for myself, I can do this! Just go in there and ask!” Reluctantly he leaves to ask the only judge if she will hear me. She will.
Once in the court room, after all of the court niceties are over, I begin reading the four pages I practiced aloud in front of my bathroom mirror. Not only do I point out every way my daughter’s father has breached two court orders he, himself, initiated, the following three court orders that he was ordered to adhere to, how he was found in contempt of court twice, and how he actively and knowingly participated in what is called blameworthy conduct to financially benefit himself at the expense of his only child, I also reminded the judge I am speaking before of her conduct on Friday May 17, 1996.
I don’t think she appreciated my informing her of her lack of attention to my case over fourteen years ago. Facts are the DNA of our justice system, and I trusted the duty counsel, and more importantly the judge who was legally bound to fully review all of the facts within my daughter’s father’s financial statement on Friday May 17, 1996 before she granted him a reduction in child support. In a flash of “justice” the monthly child support went from $306.30 to $150 or $3,675.60 per year to $1,800, an annual decrease of $1,875.60. Although I tried, I have never been able to change that child support order since.
Did the judge even look at his financial statement before she passed her judgment that left my daughter and me living at or slightly above the poverty line for over 14 years? I don’t know. Did she consider all of the facts of my daughter’s father’s financial statement and put the interest of the child, my child, before the interests of her father, the payor parent? I don’t know that either, but I am of the belief that the interests of the child are always supposed to come first. What I do know is that the judge didn’t even ask when my daughter’s father became unemployed, if he was looking for work, if he was entitled to unemployment insurance, how, when, or why he became unemployed as he solemnly declared he was or his skill set. Nor did the judge question any of his many questionable after tax expenses. I did.
I told duty counsel that day that he didn’t add his expense columns up properly and that there was no way he could have had $2,198.30 in after tax expenses per month with absolutely no income as he stated. According to him, he was living in his parents’ basement. After I deducted the monthly child support, an expense that he claimed, his after tax expenses were $1,892 a month. Even by today’s standards, $1,892 per month in after tax living expenses for an unemployed person living in his parents’ basement is a lot of money. If we compare that to February 1996, when our dollar went further, my daughter’s father’s expenses were astronomical! In fact, he claimed more after tax living expenses in February 1996, when he said he was unemployed and living in parents’ basement, than he did in his financial statement on March 12, 1992. Then his monthly after tax expenses, not including child support were, $1,773.36 per month, he was employed and living in his parents’ basement. But even his expenses in 1992 are highly questionable. Every financial statement he has ever presented to the courts was and still is. No one listened to me that day or any other time I went to court after that.
Nothing changed on October 24, 1996, February 26, 1998, and November 9, 1999 or on December 17, 1999 even though my daughter’s father was found in contempt of court because he chose not to appear in court that day. On August 14, 2000 my daughter’s father was found in contempt of court, again, but that still didn’t change anything. When he did decide to attend court for our next and last hearing on October 4, 2000 the judge did charge him court costs of $1,000, but my daughter’s father still did not fully provide all of his financial disclosure as he has always been ordered to.
In all those years, even with the help of two legal aid lawyers, one certificate I had to appeal because in 2000, only people on social assistance automatically received help from legal aid lawyers and I wasn’t poor enough because I had assets, including a RESP for my daughter, and all of the legal advice from duty counsel, my daughter’s father just kept slipping through the ever widening gaps of our legal system.
How, with all of the legal help from legal aid lawyers and duty counsel is it that my case has never been fully resolved? Is my daughter’s father smarter than the legal aid lawyers and duty counsel or were they not doing their jobs properly? How can our justice system allow anyone to make a mockery of it when so many vulnerable people like me entrust their lives in the justice system in order to feed and support their families while people like my daughter’s father manipulate it to their own financial benefit? Every time I, and others, go to court it comes out of the taxpayers coffers. Had I not decided to stay off of the “system” of social services or another form of welfare, the taxpayers of Ontario would have been providing for me and my daughter. Thankfully, I, like many other members of the working poor, who are not always entitled to legal aid, have a work ethic. Unlike some members of the working poor, my daughter is and has always been a highly productive taxing paying member of society.
And just how much was that former provincial, now federal, judge getting paid in 1996? I don’t know but the 1990’s were a time when both the federal and provincial governments had a mandate to break the glass ceiling in government positions to include minorities of than women and people of colour. Was that former provincial judge even qualified to be a judge or was she, “pushed” through the family law division of the provincial legal system to meet its mandate? A mandate that was a global initiative set out by the OECD? Again, I don’t know.
In my opinion, the justice system has failed me more than once. If I did not literally and figuratively stand up for myself, by taking my legal matters into my own hands on Tuesday July 30, 2013, my case would have been dismissed entirely and my daughter’s father would have managed, with in my opinion, the aid of our legal system to slip through its cracks as he built his wealth on the financial back of our daughter. Fortunately for me, the same judge who slashed the child support to less than half on Friday May 17, 1996, granted me another, final, opportunity to correct this matter. My next court date is Friday November 8, 2013.
Here are other longer blogs that relate to today’s blog,
Tuesday July 30, 2013 http://arebelsrant.com/tuesday-july-30-2013/
What I Said On Tuesday July 30, 2013 http://arebelsrant.com/what-i-said-on-tuesday-july-30-2013/
Friday May 17, 1996 http://arebelsrant.com/friday-may-17-1996/
Legal Aid–Ontario http://arebelsrant.com/legal-aid-ontario/
Thank you for reading, A. Rebel’s Rant! ;D
by 
by