Friday - January 28, 2011

NEW LAW … NO JOKE … RAISE YOUR VOICE TO A SPOUSE AND IT’S DOMECTIC VIOLENCE

Some kind of call huh folks?  More lunacy.  Sure, there are abusive men and women but from time to time most of if not all of us has raised a voice to a spouse. If not in anger then total frustration. Just happens. No? This is a partial column from Tom Utley of the Mail.  He’s a constant read for us.

I don’t shout - I sulk. But how long before a judge says that’s domestic violence?
By Tom Utley

I read Wednesday’s ruling by the Supreme Court that men and women who shout at their partners are guilty of domestic violence, and liable to stiff penalties including eviction, while those who get shouted at may have the right to be rehoused at the taxpayers’ expense.

A panel of five judges, led by Lady Hale, had been hearing the case of Mihret Yemshaw, 35, who said that she was a victim of domestic violence and, therefore, entitled to a new home under the 1996 Housing Act. Officials in Hounslow, West London, had turned down her claim after hearing that her husband had never hit her, nor even threatened to do so.
It all came down to the meaning of the word ‘violence’.

Mrs Yemshaw told the court that her husband — a 40-year-old bus driver born, like her, in Ethiopia — had shouted in front of their two children, failed to treat her like a human (whatever that may mean) and hadn’t given her any housekeeping money. She also said she was frightened that he might take the children away from her. Does this amount to violence? Lady Hale thought so.

In what strikes me as an extraordinary judgment, with worrying implications for the way we’re governed, she said the meaning of the word had moved on since Parliament passed the Act in 1996.
Violence, she said, ‘is capable of bearing several meanings and applying to many different types of behaviour. These can change and develop over time’.

But in my respectful submission, like so many judges, you’re going far beyond that fuzzy line between interpreting the law and making it up as you go along. Of course, the rot started with the Human Rights Act, enforcing in British Courts a European Convention so loosely worded that it offers endless scope for judicial lawmaking on the sly.

But the judges’ opinion of their role has become even more inflated since the inauguration of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009.
Flattered by that imported title, they seem to believe they’re as august as the Supreme Court in Washington, which stands at the pinnacle of the U.S. Constitution.

In fact, there are myriad differences. Not least is the intensive congressional, judicial and FBI scrutiny that American judges have to go through — examining and re-examining every aspect of the cases they’ve tried, their politics, business dealings and family lives — before they can be admitted to the highest court in the land.

Here, democracy doesn’t get a look-in —and it’s pot luck whether we get a toughie or a softie, an arch Tory or a staunch Labour supporter. Is this any way to run what is becoming a legislature, in all but name?

Oh well, I suppose we’re saddled with Hale’s Law for the foreseeable future — and no doubt there’ll be queues of aggrieved partners, fed up with being shouted at, demanding their right to new homes.

This is what promoted his column.

Shout at your spouse and risk losing your home: It’s just the same as domestic violence, warns woman judge
By Daily Mail Reporter

Raising your voice at a husband or wife, or a boyfriend or girlfriend, now counts as domestic violence under the landmark Supreme Court judgment.
The decision also means that denying money to a partner or criticising them can count as violence and bring down draconian domestic violence penalties from the courts.
The Supreme Court made its decision in the case of a woman who left her husband’s council flat and then demanded a new council home.
She said she left because she had suffered domestic violence – even though her husband had never harmed her.

Lady Hale, leading a bench of five justices, said the definition of violence must change so that a range of abusive behaviour now counts in law.
The decision will affect domestic violence and family law which has given the courts powers to throw someone out of their home if their partner accuses them of violent behaviour.

THE REST IS HERE

Posted by peiper     on 01/28/2011 at 11:25 AM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
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