11.22.06
A quiet day
Is life too short to push soup through a sieve? I did it today, following instructions from the brother-in-law, for a new chilli soup recipe. I think its a blender job next time.
The draft exclusion is working a treat.
Got the legs waxed. I complained to therapist about my reaction to the wax recently. She said – take an anti-histamine when you go home.Brilliant!!! Took one. So far, all seems well. However, she said that my practice of chopping and changing therapists is not doing my legs any good because different therapists pull the wax off in different directions and the hair grows back then in funny directions. So you should stick to the one person. I wonder if that’s true?
I got round to reading the Sunday papers. I liked Vincent Browne’s SBPost column on Baby Ann.
He says
“Five members of the Supreme Court decreed on Monday last week that a two-and-a-half-year-old child, who had bonded closely with would-be adoptive parents who, everyone agreed, were loving, supportive and devoted to the child, had to be removed from the society of her loving would-be adoptive parents and placed in the custody of her natural parents.
The reason for this was that there was no ‘‘compelling reason” to deprive the child of constitutional right to be reared and educated by her natural parents, who had married since the child had first been placed for adoption…..
The judges said the Constitution gave such prominence to the family and the rights of the family that only when there were ‘‘compelling reasons” – and the threshold for this was very high”
He then goes onto recall another case
“On January 23, 2003, the Supreme Court issued a judgment in a case known as the Lobe case. Unlike the baby Ann case, the judges in the Lobe case were in disagreement.
The judges in the majority were Ronan Keane, Susan Denham, Hugh Geoghegan, Adrian Hardiman and John Murray. The judges in the minority were Catherine McGuinness and Nial Fennelly.
Three of the judges in the majority in this Lobe case – Murray, Hardiman and Geoghegan – decreed in the baby Ann case last Monday that baby Ann deserved to be in the company of her natural parents.
Almost irrespective.
In the Lobe case, the judges were asked to decide whether an Irish citizen child – that is, a child who was Irish and had full entitlement to Irish citizenship – could be deprived of the company of her natural parents, who were facing deportation.
There had been a case about this 13 years previously, the Fajujonu case. In that case, the Supreme Court held that only in the most exceptional of circumstances could the parents of Irish citizen children be deported. But in the Lobe case, Murray, Hardiman and Geoghegan decided that there would not have to be such exceptional circumstances and the deportation could go ahead to protect the integrity of the asylum system.
The entitlement of the Irish citizen child to the company and custody of his/her natural parents didn’t matter. The ‘‘family”, of which this child was a part, had none of the entitlements that the Constitution provided. The mother and father of a young Irish infant could be railroaded out of the country and too bad about the child – they did not quite put it like that, but that is what it amounted to.
Now isn’t it amazing that the judges who thought it alright to separate the Lobe child from her natural parents should think it was impermissible to separate baby Ann from her natural parents, even though Ann regards another couple as her father and mother?
In the Lobe case, the child was black, but with all the constitutional entitlements that baby Ann has, because that black child was an Irish citizen.
So why should the rights of the Lobe child be any different from the rights of baby Ann?
If it was impermissible to separate baby Ann from her natural parents, why was it permissible to separate the Lobe child from her natural parents?
Or, conversely, if it was impermissible to separate baby Ann from her natural parents, why it was alright to separate the Lobe child from her natural parents? Odd that.”
Tom said,
November 22, 2006 at 11:12 pm
I think Ireland might be better off without a constitution. The only time it crops up is when some idiotic judgement is made because the constitution apparently requires it. It doesn’t seem to do much to protect basic freedoms either.
MB said,
November 22, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Does the lobe case say that the parents and child have to be separated? Or does it just refer to the fact that the parents arent legal in Ireland? Im not saying that the Irish legal system is at all fair but the irish people did vote to remove entitlement to Irish citizenship for children born in Ireland whose parents dont have a legal right to be in ireland. The lobe judgement does not force the parents to leave their child behind. Linking the two stories together is a bit of a stretch. But if you’re saying that the legal system is severly lacking then I agree. However Irish people vote the laws in and are to blame for the mess that ensues.
Mark Waters said,
November 23, 2006 at 12:07 am
The referendum was after this case. The child is an Irish citizen. I don’t know what status it would have had in its parents country given that it was a citizen of Ireland.
I don’t think the link between the stories is a stretch at all. It shows up a sickening hypocrisy and a cold detachment on the part of the judiciary when it suits it. Who decides what’s a “compelling reason”?
pete said,
November 23, 2006 at 12:45 am
I don’t see a strong connection between the cases.
Deciding to forcibly remove a child from it’s loving adoptive parents is a big decision.
Deciding to deny a child the company / care of it’s natural parents is a big decision.
Deciding to deports illegal immigrants, along with their irish citizen children if they so choose (or not if they don’t) is a moderatly big decision, but it doesn’t compare to the first two.
pete said,
November 23, 2006 at 12:57 am
Oh, and yes, life is much too short for sieveing soup. Blenders do it better, quicker and easier! Sieves didn’t exist when soup was invented, but later cooks embraced technical advancement, and so should you!
Mark Waters said,
November 23, 2006 at 10:32 am
Pete, are you saying that the right of the Irish citizen is irrelevant because they are a child or because their parents are illegal immigrants? It’s not clear which.
Ray said,
November 23, 2006 at 10:53 am
He saying fuck them, they’re foreign.
The cases are exactly parallel – they both ask whether it is in the interests of an Irish child to be with its natural parents.
In the baby Ann case the judges said, yes, it was. It is so much in the interests of a child to be with its natural parents that this outweighs the bond it had developed with the parents who raised it.
In the Lobe case, the judges said “who cares about the interests of a kid with a funny name – let’s get those immigrants out of here!”
gerry said,
November 23, 2006 at 11:20 am
I think Mr Browne is using the race card for mischief-making. The two cases are not the same.
Case A: A decision to remove a child from her natural parents who are perfectly willing to raise her; that would be unjust you would think
Case B: Offering parents the choice to take a child back with them to their home country or the exteremely unlikely scenario of leaving the child behind for adoption. The easy decision (and perhaps right) would be to allow the parents and child to say. But it would grossly undermine the asylum laws which, as they are on the statute, the judges are also oblidged to uphold. So they took the tougher one of offering the parents the (not very difficult) choice.
Mark what rights of the child are impinged? Where in the constitution or elsewhere is the right to have two parents raise you in Ireland regardless of their legal status.
John of Dublin said,
November 23, 2006 at 11:21 am
Maybe I’m missing the point, but surely a child born here and therefore an Irish citizen is entitled to go back abroad with the deported parents who were here illegally. Admittedly, it might be to a worse physical life. The child’s initial position after birth would seem to sensibly default with his/her birth parents. I don’t see a connection to the baby Ann case. Nothing in the Lobe case stopped the parents keeping their child as I understand it – it’s just that they needed to leave the country they were in illegally and bring their child with them if they chose to keep the child – as you would think most parents would. The child’s citizenship and right to stay in Ireland should logically be only of secondary importance to the child’s right to be with his/her parents.
I’m open to correction.
Mark Waters said,
November 23, 2006 at 12:06 pm
Supposing the parents are US citizens and are deported to the USA. As I understand it you cannot have dual citizenship in the US. So the child could either have legal alien status in the US (the same as a Green Card I guess) or it could renounce its Irish citizenship for US citizenship (possibly desirable in the US but maybe not so much in other countries).
That’s one way in which the child’s citizenship is compromised.
Of course all this is a moot point as since the hideous citizenship referendum being born here does not automatically make you a citizen. Now you need a blood link. Citizenship by race is “enshrined” in the constitution.
gerry said,
November 23, 2006 at 1:10 pm
you’re entitled to your opinion on the referendum Mark, but the judge isn’t. Their primary duty is to uphold the law as voted on by the people and in this case the will of the people was pretty clear. I don’t even see that this judgement was particularly difficult.
I understand that as a black man yourself who no doubt received dog’s abuse from the terraces when lighting up the midfield for Aston Villa and Liverpool in the 80′s that you are probably particularly sensitive to this issue.
Sarah said,
November 23, 2006 at 1:23 pm
I think John and Gerry are right.The difference in the Lobe case is that the parents could take the child with them.
It might be different if they could show that the child was in immediate danger if they brought it back. Then they could bring in the right to life!
Mark Waters said,
November 23, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Gerry, would you ever get the finger out and scroll up the page to the first words I wrote. OK I’ll save you the trouble:
“The referendum was after this case.”
On the other point, you’ve got me mixed up with Mark Walters I think. There’s an “L” of a difference. Although I did get his Panini football sticker stuck on my back a few times in school. It was as hilarious then as your comment is now. ROFL etc.whatever.
Mark Waters said,
November 23, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Sarah, I guess what the two cases have in common is the assumption that the child is essentially the property of the parents and is not entitled to rights of its own.
Ray said,
November 23, 2006 at 1:29 pm
The question is, does a child have a right to the care of its parents?
The judges in the baby Ann case said yes – it was in the best interest of the child to be with its parents.
In the Lobe case, the child had a right to stay in the country, but the judges ruled that the right of the state to deport people was more important than the right of a child to stay with its parents.
Sarah said,
November 23, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Ray says “does a child have a right to the care of its parents”
Mark says …”the assumption that the child is essentially the property of the parents and is not entitled to rights of its own.”
I think this is the point. Mark is right. The child has no rights. The family does. That’s why we need the children’s referendum.
EJP said,
November 23, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Au contraire, in the Lobe and Osayande case the judgments are clear on the fact that the child has rights as a citizen; he/she cannot be deported, and has the right to choose to live in this this state. Judgments in both the Lobe and Fajujonu cases further reference the right of the child to the company, care and parentage of his/her parents
Since the infant in the Lobe case (less than a year old at the time) clearly cannot make the choice to reside in the state, the parents are obliged to do so on the child’s behalf. They however, cannot choose to reside here as, having being refused asylum, there is no legal basis for them to do so.
In that case, as noted above, courts weren’t specifically dealing with splitting up the family unit; the child is obviously free to accompany the parents. It’s a complex and obviously policy-influenced judgment that isn’t all that relevant to the Baby Ann case. There are obviously scenarios where the family unit can lawfully be split up by the state, regardless of constitutional rights, for example a situation where both parents commit a serious offence, and are convicted and imprisoned. Family rights, in common with almost all constitutional rights, are not absolute.
Mr. Browne (BL), purely due to space constraints, omits to outline some relevant differences between the Fajujonu and Lobe cases in order to make a long debated and now moot point re immigration, adds an evocatively played race card to the mix, and then loosely shackles the resultant flammable concoction to the Baby Ann case, succeeding only in bringing debate on the matter away from the central points.
Daithi said,
December 10, 2006 at 12:58 pm
i think these cases have occurred because when the constitution was drawn up we didn’t have things like immigration and foriegners to confuse our basic catholic teaching. and typically irish we don’t try to pro-actively review our policies to meet with changing times until something happens. a review of the constitution is needed, and child centred policies are required. the consequences of not having child centred policies are inconsistent and confusing decisions such as the lobe baby ann cases.