It'll be interesting to see how this one develops and how former JW's might be able to use this decision in custody agreements with any still active JW spouse.
http://canoe.ca/LondonNews/lf.lf-03-27-0003.html
Thursday, March 27, 2003
Children's aid to supervise family
Aylmer Parents Ordered To Spare Rod
By JONATHAN SHER, Free Press Reporter
The agreement ends litigation over the children that began 10 months ago. The seven siblings will stay with their parents but be supervised for six months by Family and Children's Services of St. Thomas and Elgin.
But another legal battle is brewing. Though the parents agreed to supervision, their lawyers will ask an appeals court to rule the agency trampled rights when social workers removed the children from their Aylmer home July 4, 2001.
That day, dozens of church members formed a barrier between the children and social workers, a clash Judge Eleanor Schnall said was orchestrated by church pastor Henry Hildebrandt.
"The fallout of this clash are not ever to be visited upon the children," Schnall said yesterday.
But minutes after Schnall implored both sides to co-operate, Hildebrandt, spoke defiantly from the courthouse steps to TV cameras and his congregation.
"Corporal punishment will continue as the Bible teaches it," Hildebrandt shouted, drawing calls of support from men in the congregation.
"As long as I'm a pastor, as long as I claim to be a Christian, the laws of God are No. 1," he said.
"Whenever the laws of this land interfere with the Bible, I side with the Bible, regardless of the consequences."
His words troubled Alfred Mamo, the lawyer representing the social agency.
"It's a bit surreal. We just agreed to a protection order and walk out of the courthouse to hear a public statement that would seem defiant," Mamo said.
About 170 church members, many of them children, gathered in front of the courthouse, singing Bible songs and playing in the bright sun, their voices audible in the courtroom even as Schnall said the Church of God was not a party to the case.
Later, the crowd listened to Hildebrandt defend the use of objects to discipline, saying it was done out of love and was not intended to leave marks.
But his argument was flawed, Mamo said, because parents who shake their babies to quiet them still risk killing them.
"It's the result that matters," he said.
Hildebrandt took issue with Schnall's contention the rights of children trump the rights of parents.
"That's alarming," he said.
The Aylmer parents consented to all conditions of the protection order but one -- that they wouldn't physically discipline their children.
But the parents did indicate they would refrain from using corporal punishment if ordered by the court -- which is what Schnall did.
Schnall's protective order will be in force for six months, after which the parents' conduct will be reviewed.
Though her order will not be challenged, the parents will, within 30 days, appeal her finding that the agency acted legally when it took the children for three weeks in 2001.
Schnall mischaracterized the parents' position and mis-applied the law, said the mother's lawyer, Valerie Wise.
If Schnall's ruling stands, parents everywhere would be at risk, Wise said.
"An agency can walk into a home and if there's resistance, take a negative inference . . . There's no protection for any parent," Wise said.
TERMS OF THE RULING
The Aylmer parents were ordered to comply with an order for six months whose conditions included:
- Neither parent shall physically discipline their children or permit any person to do so.
- If the parents use physical discipline or feel they might, they must notify the agency.
- The agency will have announced and unannounced access to the children and the home.
- The parents shall ensure the children receive medical attention as directed by the agency and shall follow the direction of physicians.
- The parents will follow the guidance of a couple in the Church of God, Agatha and Diedrich Braun, who gained the confidence of the agency and were made foster parents.
- The agency will assign a social worker not involved in the apprehension.