I read the most disturbing article this past weekend in the National Post.
Allow me to summarize if you haven’t already read it for yourselves; a twelve year old girl from Québec got into a dispute with her parents which resulted in her father grounding her from going on her year end school trip. This young girl then decides to find herself a lawyer, take the issue to court and believe it or not…the judge actually ruled in her favour which, in turn, allowed her to go on her trip.
This blows my mind and rips apart my confidence in our justice system.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much this whole thing upsets me and more so, there simply isn’t a list long enough to accommodate all the questions I have regarding this complete misuse of anyone’s tax dollars. If I had to sum it up though, I would want to know one thing…how was this allowed to happen? How was a judge actually permitted to listen to such a ridiculous waste of time and how did this actually manage to find its way into the court system? Something is terribly wrong here.
When I was a little girl, I always wanted to grow up to be a judge. Even now, I believe that I have somehow gained an over developed sense of justice and fairness…even much to my own demise at times. I always remember a high school teacher once telling me that “fair” does not mean giving everyone the same thing…it means giving everyone what they need. I found this statement very thought provoking as I’ve grown up and watched fairness unravel in various ways around me and in turn, I’ve never seen justice the same way again. The big challenge I had though with becoming a judge was that I never wanted to become a lawyer. I never wanted to have to work for someone that I didn’t truly believe to be genuine. How do you defend someone that you know is guilty or how do you prosecute something that you do believe warrants compassion? I know that the profession of upholding the law is not quite that black and white but my feelings towards justice are so strong that I never found myself able to pursue it in a way that wouldn’t turn my life upside down.
The law, for all of its flaws, is there to prevent anarchy and to determine what the rest of us cannot. But this system is also a very intricate web of common sense that should (easier said than done perhaps) know its limits. This system is not in place so that teenagers can overrule what they consider to be their parent’s harsh discipline. The fact that this case was even permitted to be heard really disappoints me.
How does a twelve year old even go about making this happen? Are lawyers so eager to have their voices heard that they will defend such extremes? This sort of case creates a mockery out of something that should be upheld with the utmost respect in a country that has done a great deal of work to keep the lines of justice very clear.
How can people’s time, effort and money be put into such ridiculous issues? I believe that the judge mentioned that the child’s parent’s divorce played a role in his ruling which, as far as I’m concerned, seems completely irrelevant (especially given that the parent who grounded her was her legal guardian). Does this now mean that children of divorced parents are suddenly entitled to third party intervention while parents that have remained married are still permitted to call the shots? Does it really require the resources of the justice system to figure these things out now?
We complain time and time again about how our young people are all turning down the wrong paths. They are getting pregnant younger, there is more violence in our schools, they are less concerned with their health and they are becoming independent in ways that calls for some very serious measures to be taken, and yet, as I write this, a twelve year old is celebrating victory over her parent’s authority…for a three day school trip.
I should have become a judge and if I had…you better believe that I would have sent this kid to the middle of the Congo so she could see how her “rites of passage” would have treated there. Perhaps then she would stop feeling sorry for herself long enough to let our justice system do what it was actually created to do.
Oh, and one more thing…that judge should be fired! Clearly, he was grounded one too many times when he was young!
Allow me to summarize if you haven’t already read it for yourselves; a twelve year old girl from Québec got into a dispute with her parents which resulted in her father grounding her from going on her year end school trip. This young girl then decides to find herself a lawyer, take the issue to court and believe it or not…the judge actually ruled in her favour which, in turn, allowed her to go on her trip.
This blows my mind and rips apart my confidence in our justice system.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much this whole thing upsets me and more so, there simply isn’t a list long enough to accommodate all the questions I have regarding this complete misuse of anyone’s tax dollars. If I had to sum it up though, I would want to know one thing…how was this allowed to happen? How was a judge actually permitted to listen to such a ridiculous waste of time and how did this actually manage to find its way into the court system? Something is terribly wrong here.
When I was a little girl, I always wanted to grow up to be a judge. Even now, I believe that I have somehow gained an over developed sense of justice and fairness…even much to my own demise at times. I always remember a high school teacher once telling me that “fair” does not mean giving everyone the same thing…it means giving everyone what they need. I found this statement very thought provoking as I’ve grown up and watched fairness unravel in various ways around me and in turn, I’ve never seen justice the same way again. The big challenge I had though with becoming a judge was that I never wanted to become a lawyer. I never wanted to have to work for someone that I didn’t truly believe to be genuine. How do you defend someone that you know is guilty or how do you prosecute something that you do believe warrants compassion? I know that the profession of upholding the law is not quite that black and white but my feelings towards justice are so strong that I never found myself able to pursue it in a way that wouldn’t turn my life upside down.
The law, for all of its flaws, is there to prevent anarchy and to determine what the rest of us cannot. But this system is also a very intricate web of common sense that should (easier said than done perhaps) know its limits. This system is not in place so that teenagers can overrule what they consider to be their parent’s harsh discipline. The fact that this case was even permitted to be heard really disappoints me.
How does a twelve year old even go about making this happen? Are lawyers so eager to have their voices heard that they will defend such extremes? This sort of case creates a mockery out of something that should be upheld with the utmost respect in a country that has done a great deal of work to keep the lines of justice very clear.
How can people’s time, effort and money be put into such ridiculous issues? I believe that the judge mentioned that the child’s parent’s divorce played a role in his ruling which, as far as I’m concerned, seems completely irrelevant (especially given that the parent who grounded her was her legal guardian). Does this now mean that children of divorced parents are suddenly entitled to third party intervention while parents that have remained married are still permitted to call the shots? Does it really require the resources of the justice system to figure these things out now?
We complain time and time again about how our young people are all turning down the wrong paths. They are getting pregnant younger, there is more violence in our schools, they are less concerned with their health and they are becoming independent in ways that calls for some very serious measures to be taken, and yet, as I write this, a twelve year old is celebrating victory over her parent’s authority…for a three day school trip.
I should have become a judge and if I had…you better believe that I would have sent this kid to the middle of the Congo so she could see how her “rites of passage” would have treated there. Perhaps then she would stop feeling sorry for herself long enough to let our justice system do what it was actually created to do.
Oh, and one more thing…that judge should be fired! Clearly, he was grounded one too many times when he was young!
2 comments:
I have had many guests over the past weeks and we have talked about this twelve year old as well. How can a twelve year old get to court in the first place? And secondly someone better investigate the judge-he probably is a predator. This was one of the questions that kept coming back and the conclusion that most people came too.But what a sad state of affairs when a parent cannot discipline their own children. If this "girl- child" ends up being raped or worse yet runs off with a predator, who will be charged with the crime? The girl, the parent or the judge?
I can only imagine the lively conversation around the breakfast table!
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