Top Judge replies with blanks to allegation of corrupted Court practice.
In a letter of limited distribution a father’s coalition father Benjamin Easton has continued his questioning of the
Principal Family Court Judge, Judge Boshier on alleged corruption in Family Court practice. The father alleges that in
the Palmerston North Family Court in a property settlement court case, errors have been uncovered in the handling of the
case. If such mistakes are allowed to escape their early correction a great grandmother’s family home that is under
Court order will be sold without her authority.
In the first letter to Judge Boshier, Mr Easton said that the Principal Family Court Judge should be held personally
accountable if the great grandmother’s house was sold without justice seen as done. “How can justice be seen as done if
the woman’s house is sold when interlocutory applications questioning the Court’s practice have been ignored?”
In defence the Principal Family Court Judge has described that by means of constitution he is unable to become involved
in the case, even though he agrees in principle claiming that “There is every reason for justice to be seen to be done
openly, in Court and by Judges with everyone else present and knowing what is being debated.” The Judge has further
advised that if there is a problem the correct procedure is to complain in the first instance to the Judicial Conduct
Commissioner.
Yet Mr Easton persists. “If these mistakes are compounded the house will be sold and justice will not be seen to be
done. How is the Judicial Conduct Commissioner going to stop that, when it is the Family Court Rules that are not being
observed by officers of the Court and that has little to do with the behaviour of the Judge? How will any appeal help
anyone when the first thing the Court forces is to sell the property from under her?
Under the Family Courts Act 1980 The Principal Family Court Judge is responsible for the orderly and expeditious
discharge of the business of the Court. How can this include allowing applications to be ignored and judgments made
without reasons given, allowing the Court to sell the home of the great grandmother who alleges that she has been the
victim of long term and extraordinary domestic violence”?
Mr Easton has assisted the woman to lodge a complaint with the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and will continue to
advocate on her behalf. A short cause fixture will be held in the Palmerston North Family Court on March 6th 2008. “Our
protests will not be reinstated at this stage,” says Mr Easton a protest organiser in the coalition, “but this open and
continued injustice is back on notice”.
ends