In cases of domestic violence, children should be entrusted to the victimized parent, argue some 60 organizations and individuals who signed an open letter Wednesday morning in support of the bill tabled by Québec solidaire MNA Christine Labrie.
The signatories of the letter are calling for a reform of the Civil Code of Quebec to better protect children exposed to domestic violence when it comes to custody.
When domestic violence has occurred, the signatories want it presumed that it is in the child’s best interests that primary custody be awarded to the victimized parent.
The presumption would be limited to primary custody, without automatically removing parental authority or access rights, and would be based on evidence, whether it is the result of a previous decision or administered before the court. It would leave all the necessary discretion to the courts, the letter says.
The bill reverses the burden of proof. “It puts the burden of proof on the parent who has been a perpetrator of violence and this person must demonstrate in order to have custody in whole or in part, that it is in the child’s interest to be in contact with him or her, even if he or she has been a perpetrator of violence. That it will not jeopardize the safety of the other parent is also important,” explained Labrie at a press conference in front of the Montreal courthouse.
The measure is not intended to punish a parent. “The bill, as it stands, will not completely cut off the other parent from the child’s life. There are still possible access rights. … It’s fair to come and say that the victim parent is the most likely to take charge of most of the parenting time and it’s better done without having to force collaboration with the other parent,” explained Charlie Dudemaine, who practises family and youth law.
Dudemaine approached Labrie a few months ago to change things, witnessing on a daily basis situations that penalized the victim’s parent.
“At the moment, victims have to prove the impact on the children, but this is not always possible when the child is one or two years old, when the child is not a direct witness,” said Dudemaine. “The child will still suffer the repercussions of the mother’s stress, the climate of tension. What the research shows is that regardless of whether the child was a direct witness or not, he or she is always a collateral victim of domestic violence. Therefore, it is this specific burden of proof that is reversed. We take it for granted that there is an impact on children, but domestic violence remains to be proven.”
André Lebon, former vice-president of the Special Commission on the Rights of the Child and Youth Protection, agrees: “Even for children who have not yet attained the right to speak, we see it in the visits they make to foster families, when they return home, we see phenomena that are expressed by the child in his or her behaviour. in his tears, in his resistance. In short, if we are attentive, we are able to understand the impact on children.”
Labrie says Christine Fréchette and Bernard Drainville, the two candidates vying to become the next premier of Quebec, may be interested in her bill because they have said they intend to move forward with Clare’s Law, named after the 2009 murder of Clare Wood in the United Kingdom by an ex-spouse known to authorities for his history of violence.
The Coalition Avenir Québec would like to see a law inspired by this law that allows people at risk of being victims of domestic violence to obtain information about their partner. Labrie sees a link with the desire to protect victims, because children are also victims.
She also pointed out that her bill is one of the recommendations of the “Building Trust” report, published in 2020 by the Cross-Partisan Committee on Supporting Victims of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. All parliamentarians had committed to implementing this report.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
