This paper explores parental alienation in custody and access litigation in Ontario, examining how parental alienation has been defined by various scholars, arguing in favour of the relevance of the term, and identifying a core definition which can be utilized in court. This paper also evaluates how Ontario courts have dealt with parental alienation claims to date, and identifies areas of weakness. Specifically, identification of, and response to, parental alienation is poor in cases where there are elements suggestive of both alienation and estrangement. Additionally, cases are not generally dealt with in a timely manner. Finally, this paper considers the possible benefits of youth acting as parties in parental alienation cases.

This paper explores parental alienation in custody and access litigation in Ontario, examining how parental alienation has been defined by various scholars, arguing in favour of the relevance of the term, and identifying a core definition which can be utilized in court. This paper also evaluates how Ontario courts have dealt with parental alienation claims to date, and identifies areas of weakness. Specifically, identification of, and response to, parental alienation is poor in cases where there are elements suggestive of both alienation and estrangement. Additionally, cases are not generally dealt with in a timely manner. Finally, this paper considers the possible benefits of youth acting as parties in parental alienation cases.

Lesbian families with children are greater in number and more visible today than ever before. In fact, social scientists have suggested that we may be in the midst of a lesbian "baby boom". Canada's Census figures support this assertion. Between 2001 and 2006 there was a forty-seven per cent increase in households made up of two lesbian mothers and their children. This dissertation addresses the legal issues raised by lesbian motherhood, focusing primarily on legal parentage. It considers the terms upon which parental recognition has been achieved thus far, and evaluates the efficacy of a reform agenda focused exclusively on gaining access to the existing legal framework. To explore the legal and social dynamics of planned lesbian families, interviews were conducted with forty-nine lesbian mothers living in British Columbia and Alberta who conceived using assisted reproduction. Mothers were asked about the structure of their families, how they defined terms such as "parent" and "family", the extent to which they had engaged with law, and their recommendations for law reform. The interviews revealed that lesbian mothers define family and parenthood broadly, emphasizing intention and caregiving over a purely biological model of kinship. All of the mothers defined a "parent" as someone who intends to parent and, once a child is born, performs that intention through caregiving. Parental status was thus not limited to those who shared a biological relationship with a child, or even to two individuals. The research suggests that lesbian mothers have little interest in being subsumed into the existing legal framework which tends to prioritize dyadic and biological parenting. In fact, only a tiny portion of the mothers felt that identical treatment would adequately respond to their needs. The vast majority supported law reform that would extend to them the benefits of the current system, while simultaneously expanding the existing framework to include a wider variety of parental and family configurations within it. The reform model chosen to achieve this aim combined parental presumptions in favour of the lesbian couple or a single lesbian mother, with opt-in mechanisms that allowed the family to extend beyond the two parent unit.

Doctor of Philospohy in Social Work / This research is concerned with decision-making in judgments made in the Family Court of Australia where there are allegations of child sexual abuse. The focus of the research is the identification of the concepts that are relied on in the assessment of these allegations by professionals providing evidence to the court and how judges determine what evidence should be given weight and relied on. This research was undertaken against a historical and current backdrop of scepticism about the veracity of child sexual abuse allegations in family law disputes, despite the heightened risk to children, and in particular to girls, after their parents separate and/or divorce. In this context the Family Court is also increasingly becoming a part of the child protection system as allegations of abuse are raised in hearings. This research has taken place in the period of time after the Reform Act (1995) and before new proposed legislation for 2006 was proclaimed. This research is based on a detailed thematic analysis of 21 judgments of first instance trials between 1997 and 2001 that were selected for the presence of a child sexual abuse allegation and at least two professionals disputing some aspect of the allegation. Twenty-five family members, including 18 mothers and four maternal grandmothers, made allegations about 28 family members, 21 of whom were fathers. Professionals who gave evidence included 11 child protection officers and 20 court-ordered private assessors (including 17 child and family psychiatrists, three clinical psychologists and 11 court counsellors). This research found that the context of the allegation, the family law litigation, had a dominant influence on how the allegations were assessed and interpreted: the impact of two influential paradigms, the separation and divorce and the legal/psychiatric paradigms, resulted in a reticence to test out the allegations of child sexual abuse made against fathers. Concepts from these paradigms were applied by court-ordered assessors and represented the sceptical conceptualisation of allegations of child sexual abuse as the product of the parental conflict, associated maternal anxiety and mental illness. In contrast, fathers were not scrutinised as closely against criteria for sex offending even when they made admissions relating to the allegations. Evidence from and about children was not central to the hearings and professionals who were in a position to present assessments of the child sexual abuse allegations to the court were discredited as a result of concerns about ‘contamination’ relating to criticisms of investigation and other methodological errors. In addition, allegations from children were frequently not fully examined or analysed by assessors or the judiciary. There were glimpses of a child-focused approach in a small number of hearings and, while there was no specialist assessment of the child sexual abuse allegations, there was evidence of specialist knowledge pertaining to domestic violence in cases in which there was a high level of evidence relating to serious domestic violence. This research has shown that there is a continuing influence of a sceptical paradigm in relation to the assessment of child sexual abuse allegations in the Family Court. It suggests that the scope of assessments needs to go beyond the usual scope of parental competencies to include an assessment of the propensity for child sexual abuse perpetration and the dynamics and effects of incest.

Legal positivism insists upon a distinction between the inside and outside of law. The common law and statutory rules of interpretation assist in maintaining this distinction, establishing the myth that legal decision-making is a purely objective and rational process, giving rise to internal truths. While critical theorists have illustrated the ways in which the lines between the inside and outside are always blurred, there remains a perceived distinction, in law, between the interpretation of concepts that occurs in the law and that which occurs outside the law. Only the former have legal legitimacy. The idea of the legal family is a case in point, where the law defines family according to its own prescriptions irrespective of how family is constituted by non-legal communities. In this thesis, I consider the meanings of family in different spheres to show how the lines between the social, the political and the legal consistently overlap. I then develop a mechanism by which the law can acknowledge and affirm that which is ‘outside’. This requires, firstly, a conception of law as communication and of legal interpretation as a constructive process. Secondly, the task demands that jurists engage with the semiotic processes of the everyday and that legal concepts, at least those that exist independently of the law (family for example) be framed with an open indexicality. This might enable such concepts to be interpreted according to a range of contexts, other than (or in addition to) the legal one. Finally, using the family as an example, I illustrate how a semiotic approach can assist legal interpretation, reform and analysis.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2004. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Bibliography: leaves [260]-275.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Lesbian families with children are greater in number and more visible today than ever before. In fact, social scientists have suggested that we may be in the midst of a lesbian "baby boom". Canada's Census figures support this assertion. Between 2001 and 2006 there was a forty-seven per cent increase in households made up of two lesbian mothers and their children. This dissertation addresses the legal issues raised by lesbian motherhood, focusing primarily on legal parentage. It considers the terms upon which parental recognition has been achieved thus far, and evaluates the efficacy of a reform agenda focused exclusively on gaining access to the existing legal framework. To explore the legal and social dynamics of planned lesbian families, interviews were conducted with forty-nine lesbian mothers living in British Columbia and Alberta who conceived using assisted reproduction. Mothers were asked about the structure of their families, how they defined terms such as "parent" and "family", the extent to which they had engaged with law, and their recommendations for law reform. The interviews revealed that lesbian mothers define family and parenthood broadly, emphasizing intention and caregiving over a purely biological model of kinship. All of the mothers defined a "parent" as someone who intends to parent and, once a child is born, performs that intention through caregiving. Parental status was thus not limited to those who shared a biological relationship with a child, or even to two individuals. The research suggests that lesbian mothers have little interest in being subsumed into the existing legal framework which tends to prioritize dyadic and biological parenting. In fact, only a tiny portion of the mothers felt that identical treatment would adequately respond to their needs. The vast majority supported law reform that would extend to them the benefits of the current system, while simultaneously expanding the existing framework to include a wider variety of parental and family configurations within it. The reform model chosen to achieve this aim combined parental presumptions in favour of the lesbian couple or a single lesbian mother, with opt-in mechanisms that allowed the family to extend beyond the two parent unit. / Law, Faculty of / Graduate

Šio darbo tikslas – remiantis mokslinės literatūros, teisės aktų ir teismų praktikos analize atskleisti šeimos santykių teisinio reguliavimo socialinį veiksmingumą. Darbą sudaro trys dalys. Pirma dalis – Šeimos teisės socialinio veiksmingumo samprata. Joje išanalizuota mokslinė literatūra, siekiant atskleisti šeimos, šeimos teisės ir socialinio veiksmingumo sampratas. Antra dalis – Šeimos santykių teisinis reglamentavimas. Atlikta Lietuvos ir tarptautinių teisės aktų, reglamentuojančių santuokos sudarymo ir nutraukimo, asmeninius ir turtinius sutuoktinių bei asmeninius ir turtinius tėvų ir vaikų santykius, analizė. Trečioje dalyje – Šeimos teisės įgyvendinimo socialinės ir teisinės problemos - išanalizuoti teismų praktikos, Statistikos departamento ir Centrinės hipotekos įstaigos pateikiami duomenys, atskleistos socialinės ir teisinės problemos, mažinančios šeimos teisės socialinį veiksmingumą. Pateikta šeimos pokyčių per pastaruosius penkiolika metų analizė. Daugiausiai dėmesio skirta santuokos sudarymo ir nutraukimo, sutuoktinių turtinių santykių reguliavimo bei tėvų ir vaikų tarpusavio išlaikymo santykių socialinių ir teisinių problemų tyrimui. Darbo pabaigoje pateikiamos gautos tyrimo išvados ir rekomendacijos, kaip gerinti šeimos teisės socialinį veiksmingumą. / The aim of the present research is to find out the legal proceedings of family relations social performance on the grounds of science literature, legislative acts and the analysis of case-law. The research paper consists of three parts. In the first part, based on the anglysis of various scientific literature, the conceptions of family, family law and social performance are presented. The second part is about legal regulation of family relations. The background for that research has been Lithuanian and International legislative acts of entering into marriage and dissolution of marriage, property personal rights of spouses, property personal rights between parents and children. The social and legal problems of implemintation of family law are defined in the third part of the research paper. The problems which diminish family law social performance were revealed on the basis of material taken from Deparmanent of Statistics, Central Mortage Office and case-law. At the end of the research paper there are conclusions made and recomendations on how to improve family law social performance. Keywords: family, family law, family law principles, family law social performance, legal regulation of family relations.

The family is the basic unit in our society. When there is a breakdown in this unit, specifically in the marital relationship, the effect upon the husband, wife, and children can be devastating in terms of poverty, abuse, and cost to society. The frequent inability of the poor to obtain counseling and legal assistance in resolving family relationships perpetuates the social and psychological results of a poor marriage. This study is concerned with poor persons and their ability to receive both legal and counseling services for their family problems 0 Other concerns are with the questions of alternatives to divorce for the client, the effects of marital breakup on the children, and the possibility and utility for a social worker to have a role in the legal process.