This is it! We are back in court. The bottom line today, is that the Continuing Care Application is unfounded.
Our Canadian citizenry and society is enhanced by a comprehensive application of law to reprehensible acts of abuse of children. Child Abuse in all of its forms is punishable. The term “child abuse” refers to violence, mistreatment or neglect experienced by a child or adolescent who is in the care of someone they trust or depend upon such as a parent, sibling, other relative, caregiver or guardian. Its many forms are detailed at http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/fv-vf/facts-info/child-enf.html#preventing
Paul and Zabeth Bayne are not in court answering a criminal charge. When their daughter's health was threatened and medical staff theorized that her injuries suggested she had been harmed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were notified and performed their necessary enforcement procedure which included arrest and interrogation and investigation. The result was insufficient evidence to support and to proceed with a criminal charge.Instead today, Paul and Zabeth are in court challenging a Continuing Care Order by an MCFD Director that is based upon a perceived risk which itself is founded upon the assumption that Paul and Zabeth are offenders, despite the RCMP conclusion of insufficient evidence. There was insufficient evidence back in 2007 and nothing has changed. It is still insufficient evidence. And why was it insufficient? Because it was based on a person's opinion, albeit a professional medical opinion. A medical degree does not convert opinion into evidence. It remains opinion. In fact while a shaking baby allegation was inherent in the medical diagnosis of their infant daughter in autumn of 2007, it turns out that the diagnostic title is unmerited and unfortunate. The medical findings were legitimate but their origin it turns out may be attributed to accident and/or medical conditions and not exclusively one source such as SBS which infers immediately a non accidental injury and a criminal offense by virtue of its title.
A perceived risk is not the equivalent of a criminal conviction and yet the Director's application expects the Judge to punish Paul and Zabeth as guilty and unrepentant perpetrators by ruling that the Director may keep their three children to the age of majority. Yet these parents posited the explanation that their daughter's injuries were perhaps the combination of the fall of a sibling on the infant and the inherent developmental issues of their premature children and the lengthy delays of medical examiners to identify the baby's issues when the Baynes first witnessed signs of her struggle.
Initial suspicion should long ago have been dismissed in light of the substantive medical evidence by other experts who disputed the SBS diagnosis and in light of the overwhelming character references and parental performance testimonies by scores of close friends. Initial suspicion should have been set aside in recognition of the inferior quality of the case worker's biased risk assessment which didn't reference any of this character support or the subjects' admirable attributes.
On this unsubstantiated hearsay we will spend most of our day today as Court reconvenes so Ministry Counsel Finn Jensen may bring his summation.
It is high time that this family was re-united. MCFD has wasted time, money and lives. MCFD should have quit a long time ago, but their arrogance knows no bounds. Too bad the lawyers that work for them couldn't find something else to do with their law degrees, because it must be a miserable way to make a living, as it seems fairly clear that Mr. Jensen knows that this is a case which never should have been pursued.
ReplyDeleteRon; I want to cover a couple of topics today. First the person who wrote about the common elements in child protection across Canada and who seemed to be very well informed about the details. Second the person who started off as anonymous Sept 18 10.33 AM and continued with a heated dialogue about the six year old boy with multiple injuries.
ReplyDeleteTo start with, one can have massive knowledge about legislation and policy, but it does not mean a thing without knowledge of the organisational culture and the type of quality of personnel. Their training, ability to use good judgement and their ethical imperatives. Good people will make any system work to a standard acceptable to public expectations. Poor personnel will wreck any system. The same systems are used by different people in many ways. Look at British Columbia. When the members of the assembly passed the CF&CSA they clearly intended certain principles to be followed. Nothing of the sort happens and nobody takes responsibility to ensure that it does. All the theoretical client protection safeguards provide only process with no outcome. Often they are put on hold if a case is before court. Your legislative writer said that court presentation is short and brutal leaving parents powerless. A judge has the power to protect the parents, but they do not usually bother. For instance a judge can set down an hour or two in the near future to hear access arguments. Why is it not done? Mr. G. made this request and the judge set down an hour a week later to hear it. It came before a different judge who refused to hear the application, because he did not want to get seized with the case. Mr. G's lawyer made no attempt to take it further. Next appearance nine months later. All this was not due to the system but due to poor personnel. People have a duty to report protection but their identity is confidential. This opens everything open to abuse by malicious gossip, false allegation and etc. Also it is not true that one can guarantee to keep the identity secret. A person having serious evidence can be called as a witness and a judge can also demand to know who they are. It is unsound to rely on hearsay in a serious protection case. I personally never guaranteed anyone anonymity. There are far too many spite complaints.
I wrote extensively in a previous blog that for a system to be as dysfunctional as the child protection services requires tacit collusion from many people. Indifferent judges, lazy lawyers, ignorant staff, poor supervision and an upper management that does not really want to know what goes on. A management that wants to make all its staff into bureaucratic functionaries and thinks you can solve problems by administrative tinkering. An administration that makes the same mistakes over and over again. All this is aided and abetted by the members of an assembly who are scared of stirring up a can of worms that will not get them any votes. I will have to continue on topic two in a second blog.
I know B.C. is three hours behind my time zone but am on pins and needles here. Please God, I hope the news is good.
ReplyDeleteReader from NYC
This is second hand from someone who attended and left early, but I understand the courtroom was standing room only. Finn didn't get started until about noon, and went through the evidence and such in considerable detail.
ReplyDeleteI too wait for details and impressions. The transcript of the proceedings I understand must be produced in order for Mr. Christie to respond to.
Well New West 9:42 PM, that second hand report was a bit skewed. We were in the court room at 9:30 AM and Jensen had the floor all morning and all afternoon. Two parts to his presentation, the summary proper not until 2 PM.
ReplyDeleteThe transcript that Baynes need in order to reply can only be read at the registrar's desk at the courthouse unless they buy one and that costs $500 perhaps. They have to do that.
The news is that Jensen is not finished.
ReplyDeleteYou have GOT to be KIDDING! Another day for a seized just, the chief justice, no less -- will that be another month or two wait?
ReplyDeleteIt would appear Mr. Finn misrepresented his 3/4 day estimate for his final argument.
The length of his summary and necessity to actually read it off and use up valuable court time is absolutely needless.
It should be clear to onlookers that this is simply a tactic to drag on the case and to drive up costs which the government can afford and the Baynes (and most families facing MCFD) cannot. The abuse of process and financial punishment really is quite remarkable.
That $500 estimate for Mr. Christie's one hour summation sounds high, VERY high. The judge ordered a copy for the court file, which the Attorney General pays for. Copies of all court-filed documents are charge by the registry at a dollar per page. An hour might be 20 pages at the most, so it is worth asking the judge to confirm this at Finn's conclusion.
I know transcription companies try to make people pay anywhere from $5 to $10 per page for a copy of anything they produce, but in practice, the one master copy is made then whoever ordered it and they pay this per-page rate, and they make copies at 5 cents a page.
If Mr. Christie was not working pro bono, his hourly rate would unlikely be $500 per hour. Mr. Finn as a Q.C. might well be charging the government that rate.
It must be nice to be able to write your own paycheck by first billing preparation time, then doubling that sum by simply reading it off in chambers.
In higher end Supreme Court trials, real-time transcription with computer monitors for each side and the judge are in operation. I've seen lawyers scroll back to past statements in real time.
It is incredible the disadvantaged position parents are put in to fight allegations for which charges have not even be laid. Parents in court under these conditions should have MORE rights, not LESS than if they were charged with a crime.
There is absolutely no reason Finn could not have submitted a written argument of how ever many hundreds of pages he wished.
Does this mean Judge Crabtree going to read his written reasons as well, instead of simply email the file to each side?
I have not heard of a more backwards and needless waste of court time. What a waste also for all those people who have given up there day to attend, and they are told it is still not finished.