Let’s educate ourselves by allowing careful reporting of family cases

LAST night reality TV got real with the first of a four-part series called For Better or Worse. It’s all about divorce, and RTÉ publicists say it will ‘break one last taboo’ in Irish society by looking at the reality of marriage break-up through the eyes of some of the people directly involved.

In the first episode we heard stories about couples meeting, falling in love and the early difficulties which beset their marriages. The series will feature four couples in particular but others will highlight divorce-related problems such as domestic violence, single fatherhood, the impoverishment of women and the sale of family farms.

It looks like a good idea. Despite the fact that large numbers of people continue to get married (20,000 couples did so last year) the divorce rate doubled between 1998 and 2002 and the number of divorced people now stands at 35,100. Anything that sheds light on the causes and effects of this is welcome.

The trouble is, while real-life stories are compelling, they can also misrepresent reality. When issues like domestic violence, impoverished spouses and suffering children are so often part of the divorce experience, programme-makers may be tempted to pick the 'juiciest' stories.

The opposite temptation would be to normalise divorce. This involves presenting divorce as an inevitability which has to be faced. The impact on children gets played down by suggesting that if thedivorce process is non-adversarial, and children have plenty and flexible access to both parents, much of the pain and suffering can be prevented.

There is some truth in this, and new research to be launched in Novemberby the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Coughlan, will highlight the damage done to Irish children by the divorce process.

Geoffrey Shannon, a solicitor and the Irish expert on the Commission on European Family law, says there should be mandatory divorce education programmes like those used in the US, in places like Florida and Pennsylvania.

"As a prerequisite to the grant of divorce, people should be shown the impact on their children of taking an adversarial approach." But how do you deal with the problem that, once divorce is normalised within society, people become less likely to work at their marriages? And, regardless of how civilised the divorce process becomes, don't children suffer anyway?

As Elizabeth Marquardt, a researcher with the Institute for American Values, puts it: "One home becomes two and each becomes an increasingly different world. Even if they move into separate houses and share a backyard, the child's life is forever different. Now it becomes his responsibility to see and visit with his parents, maintaining an inner calculation of equal time, glancing at their faces when he leaves to see if they are sad to see him go, and all the rest, while children of married parents can just 'be'.

"They live in their home and see their parents as a matter of course without having to think about it or plan it. The difference is huge."

Perhaps it would be better to prevent divorces from happening instead of merely trying to cushion children from its impact. According to Geoffrey Shannon, family support is poorly funded by the State compared with other services like child protection.

He would also like to see a greater visibility of children within the family law system. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires separate legal representation of children in all judicial or administrative proceedings, but Section 28 of the Guardianship of Infants Act, 1964 which was designed to implement this, has never come into force.

It's hardly surprising then that our courts don't even consider whether granting a divorce would be in the best interests of the children involved. It's a non-issue.

So also are the rights of fathers, however. Last week Bob Geldof became the latest champion of divorced fathers when he published an article in Children and Their Families; Contact, Rights & Welfare, condemning his treatment at the hands of the British family law system.

GELDOF fought a bitter custody battle with his former wife, the late Paula Yates, who left him in 1995 for rock singer Michael Hutchence. Eventually Geldof got custody of his children but not before the law had 'ridiculed', 'humiliated and belittled' him.

"It would not accept that I was as capable of bringing up my children as a woman," writes Geldof. "I would like to see the enactment of recent Danish-type legislation. This assumes a 50-50 child custody split between separating couples," he argues.

"We've seen the rise of dual career couples; now we need dual-carer couples."

"The implication of any order determining a father's allotted time with his children is that he is always of secondary importance within the house. 'Reasonable contact' is an oxymoron. The fact that as a father you are forbidden from seeing your children except at state-appointed moments is by definition unreasonable." Geldof's argument is just as relevant to the Irish family law system as it is to the British.

The courts here tend to adopt a model of family life which assumes that, in the event of a split, children are better off with their mothers. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that fathers are being abused by the system.

Custody of children can be determined without regard to parental conduct so, for example, where a marriage breaks up because the mother has an affair, children can be deprived of the society of their fathers for all but a few hours a week, as happened, initially, in Geldof's case.

This problem can be compounded if mothers abuse the courts' rulings on access for example, by failing to comply with agreed times for visits, or by abusing their custody rights to damage the father's reputation in the eyes of his children.

However, the secrecy of the family law system makes it difficult to assess just how much fathers are being mistreated. Under the in camera rule, which is designed to protect people's privacy, journalists and members of the public are excluded and normal court reporting is prohibited.

Geoffrey Shannon argues strongly for a relaxation of the rule.

"Ireland is one of the only countries in Europe which lacks the necessary data on who is going before our family courts, what issues are arising and what decisions are being taken," he says. He points out that in Australia, the law has been changed to allow reporting of family law cases while guaranteeing the anonymity of the parties.

"Publicity is the soul of justice," Shannon says. "The fog over family law needs to be lifted."

Changing the in-camera rule would show more clearly than any documentary series can just what is going on in our divorce courts. That might lead to more public education to help people approach marriage in a mature way, and more resources to help them stay together when times get tough.