NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Premium
Home / New Zealand

Loren Portnow: With Family Court decisions there's a lot at stake. So how well does it do?

NZ Herald
16 Dec, 2021 04:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

There is no data on the quality of the Family Court's rulings. File photo / Greg Bowker

There is no data on the quality of the Family Court's rulings. File photo / Greg Bowker

Opinion

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the creation of the New Zealand Family Court.

It is the nation's second-busiest court. In matters of parenting or child custody, the court's decisions can run the gamut from shared parenting to reversal of custody and even parentectomy.

So, one wonders about the court's performance over the course of two generations. Does the Family Court get it right more often than not in cases involving children?

The answer is unknown. The only published metrics of the Family Court are quantitative. They reflect budgetary and short-term concerns: annual number of applications filed, disposed, outstanding, delivery time of judgments and appeals statistics.

We know nothing about the outcome of the children whose lives may have been forever altered by the court's decisions.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

We should care about the performance of the Family Court for three principal reasons:
- The ability of the court to dramatically impact the lives of children;
- New Zealand's emotional child abuse statistics are appalling;
- The Family Court runs the risk of eroding the public's trust.

There is no data on the quality of the Family Court's product, i.e., its rulings. Normally, statistics on appeals might give a clue as to the calibre of a court's decisions. However, the unique nature of family law in New Zealand means it is not a useful metric despite an automatic right of appeal in these matters. In 2020 there were only 25 successful appeals among the approximately 60,000 annual applications filed with the court.

Cases of emotional child abuse are often brought to light during Family Court proceedings. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of statistics on the dismal state of tens of thousands of children in New Zealand. The Unicef New Zealand website succinctly states: "New Zealand has one of the worst records of child abuse in the developed world".

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The Oranga Tamariki July report "At a Glance: Prevalence of Harm to Children in New Zealand" states that over 13,000 children were abused last year. Emotional child abuse alone was equivalent to the sum of all sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect cases.

New Zealand's Office of Children's Commissioner statistics for the period 2015-2011 report an annual average of 20,708 substantiated cases of child abuse. Emotional abuse was perpetrated on 55 per cent of those children.

One reason for the abysmal statistics may be the absence of statute law to protect children from emotional abuse. It is not a criminal offence, unlike sexual or physical child abuse. The law only protects children from witnessing family violence or the risk of witnessing it.

Public trust in the institutions of government is a fragile thing. The Family Court relies upon a level of faith unlike any other government entity because of the absence of information on its performance.

That trust is tested for example when a High Court judge states that a Family Court ruling leaving a child in the sole care of an abusive parent – and excising the other parent - will result in the child continuing to be emotionally abused and suffer. That trust is doubly tested when the appeal is declined in full.

Parliament's changes to family law are experienced during the Family Court process. It is not difficult to imagine the blame for any negative unintended consequences being laid at the court's doorstep by parents.

It is not comforting when the senior Family Court judge states that the court is "heavily burdened" but neither biased nor broken. There is no ability to claim positive outcomes by the court because the data is nonexistent.

One way to measure the quality of the Family Court rulings is to perform a longitudinal study of children of litigating parents in which emotional child abuse was found to be a matter of fact by the court. Put simply, track the emotionally abused children of Family Court cases and learn how they have fared later in life. The research can be anonymised to protect children's privacy.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Longitudinal studies have been completed on child abuse victims and children of divorce. A longitudinal study of emotionally abused children of child custody litigation would be a first.

It would give insight as to the outcome of the court's intervention. It would have the potential to revolutionise the Family Court.

Some of the issues raised have been acknowledged by the judiciary earlier this year. However, there is a deafening silence on the matter of the Court's actual performance over its history.

Only until there are qualitative statistics and facts can the Family Court better protect children and instil trust in the institution. A longitudinal study would be a reasonable place to start.

To stay the course or do otherwise is to continue to operate the court in a vacuum; never knowing the efficacy – or damage – of its rulings on children.

- Loren Portnow experienced over six years in family law litigation during which time he completed an LLB at the University of Auckland.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from New Zealand

Auckland
|Updated

'Sustained period of cruelty': Starship doctor slates child protection agency failings

New Zealand

Police officer had on-duty sexual activity with civilian, misused database

New Zealand

Alleged drunk driver impales car on Waitara Bridge median barrier

Watch

Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

'Sustained period of cruelty': Starship doctor slates child protection agency failings
Auckland
|Updated

'Sustained period of cruelty': Starship doctor slates child protection agency failings

An almost identical case occurred two months after Malachi's death, the doctor said.

16 Jul 05:15 AM
Police officer had on-duty sexual activity with civilian, misused database
New Zealand

Police officer had on-duty sexual activity with civilian, misused database

16 Jul 05:15 AM
Alleged drunk driver impales car on Waitara Bridge median barrier
New Zealand

Alleged drunk driver impales car on Waitara Bridge median barrier

Watch
16 Jul 04:52 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP