MORE LEGAL HOOPS

More legal hoops

Hi:

Yesterday's hearing, as predicted, was, in and of itself, a fairly boring event, although lots of valuable discussion took place before and after it. No judge sat on the bench, and it was run by a court clerk. This apparently is a common practice these days, given the shortage of judges, when it is known in advance that the purpose of the hearing is purely administrative. I'm told that, by the end of the day, a judge will put his/her stamp of approval on the documentation of what went on within the courtroom.

The CAS lawyer immediately declared that they are willing to move to a settlement conference. The court clerk then began, starting with the earliest, to offer court dates which will be available for such a thing. The first one which will be available to the court, our lawyer, the CAS lawyer, and the children's lawyer, is November 23. The settlement conference, therefore, is scheduled for one hour on November 23 at 2pm. All parties then, since a judge wasn't present to order it, formally indicated their agreement to this by signing an adjournment form, and it was all over.

The children's lawyer was not present since she was required in another courtroom, and our lawyer told the clerk that he was acting as her agent. I suspect that this, too, even in her absence, is her way of letting the court know where she stands.

The lady who currently runs one of the play groups which my wife attends, as well as another lady who goes there, came along to give my wife some much needed and appreciated support. Our friend with whom I work also came along. Our 16-year-old son took the morning off school (grade 11) to come along as well.

Outside the courtroom:

Our lawyer reminded us about the two options available to us, i.e. that we could elect to have either a "settlement conference" (his first choice) in which the judge serves as mediator while all concerned parties try to come to a mutually agreeable compromise, or a "care and custody hearing" (his second choice) in which both sides fight it out with the victor legally owning the children. I told him that we most definitely prefer constructive dialog to antagonistic battles. Apparently, based on the CAS lawyer's opening statement during the hearing, they also, at least at this point, believe that that's the best route to follow.

Before the hearing, and before we'd even spoken with our lawyer, I asked our social worker what she expected it to accomplish. She predicted, since the CAS hadn't seen the psychologist's report yet, that nothing would happen but the setting of the next court date (as indeed was the case). I, ever hoping to start the child return process as soon as possible, asked her if this would mean that everything would be on hold until then. She said that it wouldn't be, and that we'd be having meetings between now and then to iron out the details of an agreement. I told her that I hoped that we, as adults, could put all of this antagonism aside and commit to coming to an agreement before the next hearing. Our lawyer, after the hearing, also gave her a similar message.

Our social worker had called us on Wednesday to inform us that we were now being allowed to bring our children home between worship services on Sunday. While we welcome this change, as do our children, it does pose a slight problem which we discussed just before the hearing.

Our pre-apprehension schedule was to give our children supper after evening worship. These days, however, since they're being picked up right after evening worship, we've been giving them supper as late as possible in the afternoon. If we can't start warming up lunch until we get home, and since we must have supper a little earlier to give us time to get back for evening worship, the two meals will be much too close together. The current plan, therefore, is for us to give them a large lunch and a light supper, and for our social worker to alert the foster parents to be prepared to give our children a late evening snack should they still be hungry.

I also asked our social worker if our three youngest children could be picked up somewhat later than 3pm due to the later lunch time. She said that she'd look into it, but that it was probably too late to have that changed for this Sunday's visit.

I told her that the closeness of the meals problem would get even worse once snow started to fall, since walking back and forth would take longer, and since the putting on and off of winter apparel takes a lot of time. To this, she gave a very hopeful answer, i.e. that she doesn't expect much snow to have fallen before this would no longer be necessary.

When our lawyer showed up, he brought, fresh of the press, the psychologist's report. He told us that his office had received it at 6:50am that morning. This must mean that the psychologist, who had taken us on on short notice when he was already fully booked, had stayed up very late the night before in order to prepare it in time for our hearing.

I asked our lawyer if he'd had time to read it yet. He said that he'd skimmed it. I asked him if he'd seen enough of it to know what sorts of things it said. His short immediate answer was "you win". He then hurriedly went off to give copies to the CAS and children's lawyers. Afterwards, he came back to tell us that the report would finally put an end to all of their concerns that my wife and I are, or ever were, either physically or emotionally abusing any of our children.

I asked our lawyer what our status was regarding our having been listed on the provincial child abuse registry. He told us that he's already written the CAS a letter requesting that they remove us from it, and threatening that we will sue them if they don't. He believes that the CAS lawyer who's been handling our case, who has just been made their head lawyer, is intelligent and should be able to see that compliance is the best option. He suspects that they'll soon be offering to remove us from the registry should we be willing to sign a release which promises that we won't sue. He did caution us, however, not to sign any such document without first seeking his approval. The risk, I suppose, is that they'll get us to sign it and then not carry through with their end of the deal.

The CAS will be having a meeting early next week to make a decision regarding our 2-year-old son (presumably to determine whether he gets to come home first, last, or somewhere in between). Our social worker told us that that meeting would have taken place the very next day (today) if it weren't for the fact that her supervisor is away. It constantly looks like those at the bottom of the CAS totem pole do all of the work, but that they're not empowered to make any decisions (take any responsibility). I'm fairly optimistic that he'll be allowed to return home sooner, rather than later, since both our social worker and our son's have both made favourable comments in that direction.

Our social worker asked us if we could meet, in our home, at 9am on Tuesday to begin to iron out the details of a settlement (schedule for return of children, how much the CAS can snoop on us, etc.). I, at the moment, am taking this as a very significant sign since she's only giving herself a couple of working days to ponder whatever the psychologist has written. Something within my mind nagged me to refuse that particular date and time, but, not being able to figure out what it was, I accepted. My wife later reminded me that the reason that next Tuesday morning is no good is because it conflicts with our bi-weekly attendance at the parenting course. I've left our social worker voice mail alerting her to this conflict and asking her what she'd like to do about it.

Our lawyer has scheduled a meeting with us at 7:30pm on Monday, in our home, to give us private advice regarding what we should expect and how we should proceed. It's sure gracious of him, in consideration of the fact that we don't drive, to so consistently offer to meet with us outside of working hours and away from his office.