Child / Parent Access Interference: New York Court removes custody from mother.

I have written multiple posts about a lack of federal policy in Canada on child-parent access issues. There are still no accessible, affordable and timely remedies to incidents of access interference in cases of divorce with children. In Canada, these situations invariably require the involvement of the court initiated by the 'victim' who is required to do a "private prosecution" to find accountability (with their own after-tax funds). If not, child-parent relationships suffer.

Nevertheless, when one can help to finance judicial accountability mechanisms to the finish line, there can be justice. Late last week in New York State, a mother lost custody of her child for not having allowed that child to have meaningful access with the child's father.

Although this type of accountability should be as common as is "access interference" itself, the Supreme Court of New York reversed custody and awarded it to the father. New York attorney Daniel Clement writes: "While the Court's decision does not detail exactly what the mother did, the decision evidences that there is a growing judicial intolerance of one parent interfering with the other parent's visitation rights." The decision is published here.

There are precedents in Canada. In January 2005 a similarly striking adjudicated response happened in an Ontario Court. Justice Lorna Snowie fined a mother $10,000 and another $15,000 sentenced her to 30 days in jail and reversed custody for not encouraging her 16-year-old daughter to participate in family counselling aimed at helping her reconnect with her father after many years of access denial.

From a policy perspective, what needs to happen is this: institutions need to also be created to enforce meaningful access between children and both of their parents similar to those already set up to enforce the payment of child support.