Discomfiture all round as media gain entry to Family Court

It's as uncomfortable as being caught between a couple arguing at a dinner party over what's best for their young son.

But instead of a dinner table, the debate rages round a row of desks, there is water in the decanters, not wine, and the "guests" are three lawyers, a judge, a court transcriber and a journalist.

This is the Family Court, the place you end up in when relationships go wrong. It is day one of a system overhaul that has allowed journalists into the court.

In contrast to the shabbiness of the Auckland District Court, the Family Court, nine floors up in the same Albert St building, is clean, its walls adorned with nautical prints.

Rather than the recounting of acts of violence, the Family Court evidence concerns kindergartens and after-school care, Education Review Office reports and inoculation. The atmosphere is conciliatory, with an undercurrent of tension.

It is the classic Family Court case: Mum wants her son to live with her, Dad wants the boy to live with him.

The boy is about to turn 5 and start school so their standing arrangement of sharing his care evenly is complicated because they live at different ends of Auckland.

There is, of course, much more to it - the accumulation of years of niggles that this apparently reasonable and intelligent pair might once have been able to resolve between them. This private forum that demands the dissection of intimate details of people's lives seems an inappropriate place for the media.

But, for that matter, it seems unfortunate that a court needs to be involved in a child's life at all.

It is not a straightforward case - in the words of lawyer Rochelle Johnson, representing the father, both parents are good and loving and the child is secure and stable - and that's not always the way in this court.

At the end of the two-day hearing, Judge Graeme MacCormick says the case is finely balanced. He reserves his decision until next week.

Outside the court, the child's mother says she was worried about the prospect of media coverage.

Her former husband and his parents are also uneasy.

"It could affect what people say in the courtroom," his mother said.

Ms Johnson is still weighing up the pros and cons of media access.

"I'm not convinced yet."