Early Responses to the New Family RulesThe following information was sent to me on 23May97, by a researcher for the Family Rules Committee. I have not asked for his permission to publish his name on the net, so I am withholding it, although there is no mystery, and he is not doing anything improper by supplying this information.- Eric Tarkington |
| "The number of responses received at my location is about three dozen.
The researcher who began work on them this week is currently contacting
Senior Justice Steinberg's office and Boris Krivy's office to determine whether
they have material that we do not and to secure copies for the analysis.
At present, the incoming material appears to be divided in roughly
equal proportions amongst three broad groups: judges, lawyers and others
(including advocacy groups and private individuals).
"The plan at present is to break down the responses according to the rule number only. Where a respondent addresses several rules, his or her comments will be broken up with each item to be pigeon-holed under the appropriate rule. This is what will be of greatest interest to the Family Rules Committee when it meets again to review the text and policy of each rule or group of rules. I doubt that we have the inclination or the time to do anything more sophisticated than that. "As for the trend of the responses, the overwhelming impression is quite favourable. The largest block of negative responses appears to be from those judges who exercise a general civil jurisdiction; the judges who specialize in family law are quite pleased with the package. Amongst the responses from the third group ('other', that is non-lawyers and non-judges), the areas that seem to attract the greatest attention seem to be legal costs (largely critical in a negative way) and the financial statement (critical in a constructive manner). Clearly, these are areas that the Rules Committee must revisit and, if necessary, to make changes. "My apologies for the skimpiness of this reply, but our researcher only began work on the Tuesday after the Victoria Day holiday. Please appreciate that what I am giving you is the product of only three days' work (excluding today, Friday, 23 May 1997)." |