Saturday, May 25, 2013
From Dawn Post, writing for City Limits:
April was child abuse awareness month, dedicated to increasing public awareness of the need to ensure the safety and welfare of children. As a result, child abuse and neglect awareness activities were promoted across the country. Many people wear blue ribbons each April in memory of those who have died as a result of child abuse and in support of efforts to prevent abuse. Horrific fatality cases are often recounted in the media.
However, there is a group of children who are also pervasively impacted yet remain unseen. The abuse and neglect they suffer is far more insidious and widespread than most people are aware, yet little to no attention is given to these children, who are the subjects in high-conflict custody and visitation cases.
Read more here.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Family law is that branch of law which has to deal with the family related issues and also domestic relationships. These relations can be between two people, unions, partners etc. The domain of family law works with:
- Civil unions, domestic partnership and marriage
- Surrogacy as well as adoption
- Child Abduction and Child abuse
- Termination of ancillary issues and relationships which include annulment, alimony, divorce, property settlement, visitation, child custody, etc.
- Adjudication of juvenile
- Paternity frauds and paternity tests
These issues are not exhaustive and vary on the basis of the jurisdiction. Many a times, in jurisdictions especially of the foreign countries like the USA, the Family court look at the most, crowded Dockets. The system contains all the representatives of litigation for all economic as well as social classes.
In India, the family law is very unique, since it requires being to the point in accordance to the religions followed here. The law considers the beliefs, tenets and customer of all the religions like Hinduism which appeals the Hindu law, Islamism which approaches the Muslim Law, Zoroastrianism which follow the Parsi law, and Christianity which follows the Christian law.
Marriage which is also known as matrimony can be defined as a Social union between two people. It can also be called a legal contract between two people who come to be known as spouses. Marriage creates rights as well as obligations amongst the spouses, the parents and their children, between spouses and there in laws, etc. Marriage has been defined in different ways in different cultures. But basically it is an institution which defines the relationships interpersonal, which are intimate. In a broader spectrum, marriage can be considered as a cultural universal. Most of the cultures govern a marriage being defined by a ceremony wedding. For recognition in the eyes of the law, the states sovereign and jurisdictions restrict marriage between opposite sex people or two people who belong to opposite genders according to the gender binary. Polygamy, forced marriages, child marriages, etc are permitted by very few of them. Today many countries and jurisdictions have allowed and made legal the marriages between the same sex and have given recognition to same sex marriage, interracial marriage, inter faith marriage, etc. In most of the cultures, marriage is compulsory before conducting any kind of sexual activity.
Apart from marriage, family law relates to a number of other issues like kinship, siblings, cousins, friends, sexual partners, etc.
Any kind of family disputes can be resolved in the family court. The family law binds people with some rules and regulations which they are ought to follow.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Pimentel: "Criminal Child Neglect and the 'Free Range Kid': Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?"
David Pimentel (Ohio Northern University - Ohio Northern University College of Law; Florida Coastal School of Law) has posted his article Criminal Child Neglect and the 'Free Range Kid': Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?, Utah Law Review, Vol. 2012, No. 947, 2012 on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In the last generation, American parenting norms have shifted strongly in favor of Intensive Parenting, placing particular emphasis on protecting children from risks of harm. Recently, a backlash to this trend has emerged. “Free Range” parenting is based on the concern that coddling children through overprotection inhibits the development of their independence and responsibility. Indeed, a growing body of literature suggests that parental overreaction to remote and even illusory risks of physical harm is exposing children to far more serious risks to their well-being and development. But the powerful influence of media has sensationalized the risks to children, skewing popular perceptions of the genuine risks children face and of what constitutes a reasonable or appropriate response to such risks. Consequently, individuals who do not buy into Intensive Parenting norms, including those from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, may be subjecting themselves to criminal prosecution for child neglect and endangerment. The criminal statutes are, for the most part, very vague, leaving these prosecutions — which amount to little more than one person’s second-guessing the parenting choices of another — in the discretion of prosecutors, who bring the charges, and of juries, who render verdicts. If prosecutors and jurors share the media-fed misperceptions of risk, overprotective parenting becomes the de facto legal standard of care. To counter this possibility, it is necessary to define criminal child neglect with far greater specificity and to allow defendants to introduce expert testimony to put the actual risks to children, as well as the downside risk of the precautions themselves, in perspective. Absent such changes, fear of prosecution may effectively force parents to conform to the overprotective parenting norm, to the detriment of society, families, and the children themselves.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
In December of last year, pharma kingpin Steward Rahr and his wife Carol announced that they would be divorcing after 43 years of marriage. The process was to be an amicable one, Rahr told me. Today, the NEew York Post's Page Six reports that proceedings have come to an end and that Carol will receive $250 million of Rahr’s fortune, which Forbes estimated at $1.6 billion as of March.
The author argues this is a good result for a billionaire divorce. Read more here.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Monday, May 20, 2013
From Angelique Devaux, writing for I-CONnect:
To marry or tax me. This could be the modern Shakespeare quote heard in the oral arguments last March 27th at the US Supreme Court in the pending case Windsor v. United States. But it is more about a story that happened in several jurisdictions around the world facing the same controversial legal and constitutional issue: whether your government should define marriage as an opposite-sex couple only, or not …?
This post explains for readers how the case came to be, and it situates its significance within a larger comparative context.
Read more here.