Subsection 24(2)(h) of the Children’s Law Reform Act that outlines a number of factors determining the best interest of the child, requires the court to consider the child’s relationship by blood or through the adoption order between the child and each person who is a party to the application. It should be noted that the section does not create a presumption in favour of biological parents. Often the applicants for custody in a court proceeding are biological parents making the…
Court’s Treatment of Custody Access Agreements
When potential clients engage my services, I generally encourage them to explore settlement resolution of their case before commencing court proceedings if parties are unable to reach an agreement. Settling custody/access by way of agreement has a lot of benefits including saving time and cost. Additionally, I find that parties feel empowered if they reach an agreement regarding their children’s lives by themselves instead of having a stranger, like a judge, who generally has limited information about the family making…
Custody – Parallel Parenting
The two most common forms of parenting orders are sole custody where one parent makes all major decisions relating to the children or joint custody where both parents make decisions jointly. The other form is split custody where each parent makes all major decision with the respect child or children in his or her primary care. In recent years, courts have made orders for shared custody where both parents parent the children equally with respect to time sharing and decision…
Custody and Access – Office of the Children’s Lawyer
Parents in a custody battle usually are faced with issue of how best to present to the court what they view as the child’s needs or the child’s views and preferences without appearing that they are influencing the child’s decision one or way or another. Your family lawyer can assist you make a decision as to whether your case needs the involvement of Office of the Children’s lawyer (OCL) to be appointed in order to effectively present the child’s needs,…
Court Ordered Supervised Access in Public Access Supervised Centre
Pursuant to section 34 of the Children’s Law Reform Act, a court may give such directions as it considers appropriate for the supervision of custody or access by a person, a children’s aid society or other body. My focus here is on access supervised by a Supervised Access Centre. Supervised access orders are made to address the best interest of the child by addressing a parent’s parenting skills, reintegration or introduction of child with the parent, protect the child from…