Are we ignoring our children in our judicial system?

When demanding a Judicial Commission to be set up to appoint Judges, are we forgetting the children affected by the system?

On 24th May, Pemalik organized a forum on "Psychological Issues affecting Children of Parents facing Divorce/Custody Battles" where issues were discussed on a legal-psychological-social perspective. Shocking facts were revealed by the eminent speakers as well as from the floor. Just imagine:

  1. There is only One Family Court in the whole of Malaysia!
  2. That it takes as long as 12 years before a divorce is final!


    3. With multi-affidavits for a divorce, custody proceedings, numerous postponements and even variations on a custody order, a child would sometimes be suffering the effects of the conflict throughout these many years.

  3. That in all states (except KL), hearings for divorce cases are mixed together with other criminal cases. Can you imagine children in a public gallery being asked in a custody hearing which parent they prefer; especially in a situation where parental alienation has taken place and the children are already traumatized by the warring parents. Are we so blind that we can expect a presiding Judge, with a backlog of cases and probably just having taken over the case, to provide a wise decision whereby the future of the children are determined? With the increasing rate of divorce (total for past 12 years exceeding 200,000), can you imagine the quality of justice we are meting out?


  4. We have yet to amend certain sections of the Law Reform (Marriage & Divorce) Act 1976 and Child Act 2001 to conform to changing needs. Section 95 pertaining to maintenance needs to be studied and the hue and cry of our women MPs on this issue to be addressed.


  5. That our Marriage Tribunal is merely rubber-stamping licenses to divorce!We need to be aware that our laws are antiquated and Something needs to be Done.


The proposal by Pemalik http://www.pemalik.org to provide a solution is most encouraging; which is to set up a Panel of Experts comprising psychologists, psychiatrists, child counselors and social welfare workers to guide the divorcing couple on issues of custody, maintenance, education, upbringing and finance, and any other relevant legal issues and then the findings be forwarded to the Judge for decision-making.

The key to all this is Joint Responsibility and not Joint Custody! (Nobody is fighting any battle! The only winning points are the saving of legal fees and the time of all affected.) We can even call this an "Early Intervention Project" as we can advise conflicting couples before it gets to the 'DIVORCE' stage.

The preservation of the 'FAMILY UNIT' is the ultimate objective. We hope you will support this proposal.

Rgds,