Juni and Juni

[2010] FamCA 517

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA

JUNI & JUNI [2010] FamCA 517

FAMILY LAW – CHILDREN

APPLICANT: Ms Juni

RESPONDENT: Mr Juni

INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: Patricia Cope

FILE NUMBER: CSC 805 of 2009

DATE DELIVERED: 11 June 2010

PLACE DELIVERED: Sydney

PLACE HEARD: Sydney

JUDGMENT OF: Watts J

HEARING DATE: 11 June 2010

REPRESENTATION

SOLICITOR FOR THE APPLICANT: AMR Legal

SOLICITOR FOR THE RESPONDENT: Bottoms English Lawyers

SOLICITOR FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER Cope Family Law

Orders

1. The mother’s Application in a Case filed 4 May 2010 be dismissed

2. So far as they are able, each party and the Independent Children's Lawyer file and serve any evidence upon which they wish to rely at the trial by 25 June 2010.

3. The parties file and serve a summary of any further evidence they have not been able to obtain, a description of that evidence and who will give that evidence by 25 June 2010. 

4. The lawyers for the parties and the Independent Children's Lawyer confer by 28 June 2010 and produce a draft trial plan which is to be emailed to my associate by 4pm 28 June 2010.

5. The matter be placed in the callover on 29 June 2010 for consideration as to whether it be heard in the July/August sittings in Cairns. 

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment under the pseudonym Juni & Juni is approved pursuant to s 121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT SYDNEY

FILE NUMBER:  CSC 805 of 2009

MS JUNI

Applicant

and

MR JUNI

Respondent

EX TEMPORE REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1. Just by way of background, by consent on 15 February 2010, interim orders were made that A spend each alternate week with her parents. 

2. Since that time, A has been living with her parents in conformity with that order.  It is the mother’s evidence that she is unable to adequately attend to the child’s schooling on the weeks that she is with her mother primarily because the mother is coping with the special needs of four children suffering from intellectual disabilities.  The mother seeks an interim order that A attend at a mainstream school and she has nominated N State School to be that school.

3. It is the father’s case that A is doing well being schooled at home, and his application on an interim basis is to leave things as they are, at least until the final hearing of the matter. 

4. It is anticipated that the final hearing of the matter will most likely take place at the end of July/early August of 2010.  

5. A is nearly 14 years of age.  When I consider, in the limited scope of this interim application, the relevant section 60CC(2) and (3) considerations, A’s wishes have to be highly significant.  At page 14 of Dr R’s report, she says that A is being supported in her endeavours by the father and is capable of self-motivation when in the care of both parents.  She quotes the father as saying quite emphatically that the “teacher is the curriculum” and A’s marks appear to indicate that this is a successful method of schooling for her, no matter with which parent she is spending time.

6. I have been provided today by the Independent Children's Lawyer with a copy of A’s term 1 results.  They seem to be excellent results.  She has A-grades in all subjects, being in the high nineties in some of them.  On the material that I have got it is not the case that A is totally isolated in her community.  She certainly has the experience of living in her mother’s household. 

7. The expert report at page 11 records that A has experienced different things since being out of the community.  There has been some attempt by the mother to get her to go to school, but the report writer said she does not want to go to mainstream school.  She likes being home-schooled. 

8. The submission made by the Independent Children's Lawyer is that as the child is adamantly opposed to attending state education.  On an interim basis, the Independent Children's Lawyer is unable to say that it would be in the child’s best interests to force a change.

9. I accept that A has been raised in a community lifestyle; that moving her in the short term to a state school system would be a change which, if I were to make it, would need to have a lot more information and testing of the information than I have at this interim stage.  It is clear that A is opposed to state school education.  That is at least her expressed view, and I, at this stage, think that it is in A’s best interests for me to rely, firstly, on the view of the report writer and, secondly, on the statement of A’s expressed views.

10. I accept at this stage, given her first term report, that whilst A is in her mother’s care she is capable of continuing her education with minimal supervision, if any supervision is in fact given in the mother’s household, and her school results are not suffering. 

11. There is only a short period of time between now and the final hearing where A’s future on an overall basis will be considered in far more detail.  At that time, some of the assertions that the solicitor for the mother has made today will be more fully explored.  There will be a testing of not only the parties but the witnesses called by the parties and the expert, and perhaps even more than one expert given that I have some evidence that A is currently suffering psychologically from the current interim arrangement where she is spending week about.

12. I do not know yet whether or not the trial will develop into a more wide-ranging inquiry in relation to whether or not the circumstances in which A lived could be described as a “destructive cult”.  I have not made any determination yet as to whether or not, evidence in relation to the religious practices of the group with which A has lived, and in which the mother lived for the last couple of decades, until she left the group, should be the subject of some type of expanded review.

13. For all those reasons, I do not think it is in A’s best interest to make any determination at this stage that I should change her current schooling arrangements, and I will therefore dismiss the mother’s application that I do so on an interim basis.

I certify that the preceding thirteen (13) paragraphs are a true copy of the ex tempore reasons for judgment of the Honourable Justice Watts

Associate: 
Date:  25.6.2010