Ebborn Law
  • Welcome
  • Vacancies
  • Family
  • Employment
  • ACC
  • Legal Aid
  • Prices
  • Contact
  • Useful Info
    • Contact with Family in Prison
    • Family Dispute Resolution
    • Parenting Through Separation
    • Family Legal Advice Service (FLAS)
    • FLAS
    • Triaging and Legal Pathways
    • McKenzie Friend
    • Family Violence
    • The Paramountcy Principle
    • Court Documentation
    • Victims' Orders Against Violent Offenders Act
    • Vulnerable Children Act
    • Protection of Personal & Property Rights
    • Care of Children
    • Child, Young Persons and their Families (CYPF) Act
    • Adoption
  • VLaw
  • Sexually Transmitted Debt
  • Blog
  • Mediation
  • Strategy
  • Security

"Gagging Orders" a media beat-up?

27/12/2012

1 Comment

 
Picture
By Erin Ebborn, Managing Director

An article on Stuff (also published in the Sunday Star Times on 23 December 2012) reports the Family Court is inserting "gagging orders" into court orders, thus preventing participants from posting complaints about their former partners on social media websites. I have been a family lawyer for almost 14 years and I have never seen a condition in a Parenting Order specifically “gagging” a parent.

The issues the Family Court deals with are very personal to the participants. There are many different times when information is confidential. For example:

  • What is discussed at counselling sessions, mediation conferences and Family Group Conferences. This is so that participants can speak freely and honestly without worrying that what they say is going to be used in Court.
  • What is said in social work or psychology reports because it is private to the people involved.
  • Making offers on a “without prejudice” basis. This is so we can make settlement proposals and negotiate without compromising the position we would otherwise be advancing in litigation.
  • There are also restrictions on what can be published by the media and how Judges’ decisions can be published. If you look at written judgements the names of the parties are often changed to protect their privacy.

Therefore we shouldn’t be surprised that there are further attempts to keep personal information private particularly when at the centre of the conflict is children.

The difficulty with social media is that it can be accessed quickly, typed without thought or in the heat of the moment, distributed to a potentially very wide audience and then be difficult to contain after publication. People commenting on Facebook or Twitter about their separation and their ex is very common. I have also seen the publication of parts of affidavits on Facebook (documents which are usually kept confidential). The outcome of such comments is rarely helpful to the resolution of the proceedings. It means that friends or family jump on board the band-wagon adding their 2c worth and my view is that the result is usually a heightening of conflict or bitterness.

Parents who separate seem to forget that their parental relationship is going to remain even when their personal one has finished.  Most children can cope with their parents separating. What they struggle with is the conflict. In my role as Lawyer for the Child it is very common for the children’s wishes to be for Mum and Dad to stop fighting and be nice to each other. Sometimes the best common sense is coming from the children.

I haven’t seen or used “gagging” clauses in Parenting Orders. But would I? I expect so. I think there is a time and a place for them. My question is how successful such a clause will be.

1 Comment

Online Legal Advice

6/12/2012

 
Source: www.stuff.co.nz

A non-profit legal advice website, called LawSpot, will allow members of the public free access to lawyers to submit questions.

About 50 lawyers from firms in the Wellington region are volunteering to answer questions that are submitted from the public. The questions are screened by volunteer law students or recent graduates who remove any identifying information, making sure questions are anonymous to the lawyers responding.

The website will featurea searchable database of previous questions so users can look for similar questions and see how the answer applied to their own situation.

Citizens Advice Bureau already offers assistance and the Community Law website publishes online copies of laws so people can check what their rights are.  However, LawSpot aims to be highly accessible and easily understood by people. There are plans to offer the service in Pacific, Maori, Chinese and other languages as new immigrants or people who have English as a second language are often particularly vulnerable to not understanding New Zealand law.

    Author

    The team at Ebborn Law share interesting bits of information about
    the law.

    Archives

    June 2018
    May 2016
    December 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012

    Categories

    All
    News

    RSS Feed

Postal Address
DX WX33342 Christchurch


P | (03) 339 2233
F | (03) 339 2283
E | support@ebbornlaw.co.nz
Picture

Finalist in 2 Categories

Picture
Canterbury
Family Violence Collaborative
Award 2015

Picture



Website design and upkeep by

Picture
Photos used under Creative Commons from Shiny Things, masochismtango, PhillipC, Marc Love