Recently I wrote a piece about a New Jersey court of appeals that criticized a lower court (and by implication, lower courts) for too readily making findings of domestic violence where none existed or where there was insufficient evidence of it.  Specifically, the appellate court pointed out that, contrary to the definitions of agencies like the CDC, verbal disagreements between spouses don't amount to DV.  I even dared to propose that actual domestic violence should actually exist and actually be found by a court to exist before that court issues orders contravening the rights of a party.

Well, so much for that idea.

British courts will now be permitted to issue restraining orders against individuals whom they have specifically found to have not committed DV, or indeed any other offense.  Yes, you read that right.  If a person is charged with a crime and found to be not guilty, the judge can still issue a restraining order if he/she believes there's evidence sufficient to "require restraint." 

Now, if that all sounds vague and subject to abuse by judges, it is.  If this article is any indication, there aren't really any guidelines to limit the power of judges in issuing restraining orders (Telegraph, 8/21/09).  Neither that article nor this one spells out what circumstances will permit a judge to issue a restraining order against a person who's been found not guilty of any offense (Daily Mail, 8/21/09).  Maybe there are no guidelines.  But the real kicker is that an actual finding of 'not guilty' isn't sufficient to, for example, allow the accused to go home, be with his kids, etc.

Actual freedom from guilt is now insufficient to prevent a judge from infringing on a person's valuable civil rights, like the right of free association and, of course, parental rights.  If you don't think that's a situation that's ripe for abuse, think again.

Judges can now grant TROs in any criminal case, but domestic violence is the cause celebre that's the target of the new law.  Both articles make that clear.  

But judges haven't exactly been hamstrung up to now.  Before the enactment of this law, they've been able to issue restraining orders based on a conviction for putting someone "in fear of violence."  Some might say that that's not exactly a stringent standard, and they'd be right.  But by comparison to the new one, it looks like a straitjacket.

And let's further be clear that this is a law aimed at men.  As one article says, "The plans bear the fingerprints of women's minister Harriet Harman..."  (Interesting how the title "Equalities Minister" and "women's minister" have become conflated.)  I assume the wording is all nicely gender-neutral, but as with all DV-related laws and practices, the ones subjected to these orders will overwhelmingly be men. 

Despite the fact that massive amounts of social science show men and women to be equally likely to commit domestic violence, essentially all resources, public and private, are directed at protecting women and condemning men.  That includes everything from media depictions of DV (See, for example, the photo in the second article linked to above.), to the shelter industry which almost uniformly ignores male victims and female perpetrators of DV, to public laws and public funding which do the same. 

So this new law will be no different.  Overwhelmingly, it will be men who are turned out of their houses; it will be men who are torn from their children; it will be men who are jailed; it will be men who lose their livelihoods.  And all of that will be based on the shabbiest imaginable "evidence," which will be so heavily freighted with the anti-male bias with which DV discourse has always been rife as to be indistinguishable from it.

At precisely the time when we ought to be curtailing the arbitrary use of TROs to infringe the rights mostly of fathers and other men, the U.K. has expanded their issuance beyond recognition and made it even more arbitrary.

Beyond disgraceful. 

(If any of our readers in the U.K. have the precise wording of the new law/rules, kindly send it along.)

Thanks to James for the heads-up.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Domestic Violence/DV System, Crime/Criminal Justice System/Police, Restraining Orders/Protection Orders.