Thursday, June 19, 2008

How did this even make it to court?

"A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl's grounding, overturning her father's punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet, his lawyer said Wednesday.

The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting "inappropriate" pictures of herself online using a friend's computer."

WHAT? Are you kidding me? This man wasn't beating his kid with a lead pipe, he was grounding her from the computer because she went out of her way to defy his rules, put in place for her protection. He was actually being a concerned, involved parent, and there are damned few of them these days.

What knob took this case on? And more importantly: how the hell did he win it?

The way I see it, one or more of the following options must be true:

- this judge has no children
- this judge was toilet trained at gunpoint and resists any form of discipline
- this judge does copious amounts of crack
- this judge seeks to champion the rights of online pedophiles everywhere
- this judge sucked her way to the bench as brains and common sense are clearly lacking.

I am really at a loss here folks, I cannot understand this ruling. Any thoughts?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I'll take my wife to court the next time she says she's too tired or has a headache.

Man! I thought this shit only happened in the states.

Jay said...

"Beaudoin noted the girl used a court-appointed lawyer in her parents' 10-year custody dispute to launch her landmark case against dear old dad."

From this comment a person might extrapolate this girl has a role model who uses the legal system to get what she wants. It sounds like there is more to this than the report tells.

Still and all forbidding a child to go on a school trip is hardly Severe, cruel or unusual punishment and is certainly within the bounds of what should be acceptable discipline for a 12 year old, BUT who is the custodial parent? Was she with her father or her mother when the punishment was meted out? Had the behaviour already been punished by the other parent? And was the trip she was missing a trip to the museum in town or a trip away thatwas the result of a year of fundraising or a trip where she was an integral part of the group like theatre or a team or the nad where she would be letting other people down.
Mind you I am not saying the father was wrong... I am just saying on the surface this certainly seems WRONG but I don't think there is enough detail to get the whole picture.

nadinebc said...

Jay,
it was a three day trip within Quebec as far as I know. And even if it wasn't- I think it is a bad precedent to set to allow kids to take their parents to court over a punishment. The trip was a privilege, not something she was entitled to. Though you do have a point when you say we don't have the whole picture.

Steve,

That stuff is happening more and more here now. The line between US and Canadian culture is quickly becoming indistinguishable. We are just as nuts.