European Court of Human Rights Tuesday 24th October 2000
Case of Joep ZANDER v. the Netherlands |
NL |
http://huixen.daxis.nl/zander/facts.htm for facts on the case http://www.echr.coe.int for ECHR site |
Post-audience statement in solidarity with Joep Zander and many others fighting for their children's rights to both parents around Europe today
The case of Joep Zander highlights how unequal our children's rights to both parents really are. A loving father and daughter ruthlessly pursued through the courts over the years until they totally lose contact with each other, and their love turns to pain.
REAL equal rights to both parents are now needed to stop society tearing itself apart. The State must stop attempting to act as an authority on children's interests, simply because two parents separate and go to court. It is true that most parents do not go to court. This is because most parents recognize they HAVE NO RIGHT TO STOP THEIR CHILDREN SEEING THE OTHER PARENT. It is parents who believe they have SOLE rights over children who are reinforced by the present system.
In this system, bureaucratic devices, such as delays, are causing the State itself to abuse children, and break the law. Forced separation from a parent is one of the worst forms of emotional abuse a child can suffer. Yet every day, throughout European, thousands of children are separated, permanently, from loving parents, often simply by bureaucratic inertia.
The State has grown callous and indifferent to human emotional reality - it is this indifference which is brutalising large sectors of society. Children do not have authority to speak for themselves, they do not have the vote, they do not even have the choice of what they are taught to believe. Adults do these things for them. Time and time again it has been shown that two loving parents are the greatest safeguard a child has, but the State seems determined to remove this security from most children who cross its path.
The European Court of Human Rights has a name to live up to - in simple cases of clear emotional abuse, by the State, of families such as that of Joep Zander, it has to decide whether to think the unthinkable and defend clear human-rights law, or whether to defend the legal bureaucracy it is part of itself. When making its decision it should remind itself that, in constitutional democracies, ALL laws and procedures have to be consistent with the basic constitutional rights which underpin them. If not, these laws are no longer legally tenable and must change.
name |
|
group / website |
|
Alain GERARD* |
F |
Parti des Enfants du Monde |
|
Anson ALLEN |
UK |
Chair of UK EPP www.equalparenting.org |
|
A.H.J.M. BERNARDS |
NL |
Dwaze Vaders |
|
Ben DROSTHAGEN* Diana DROSTHAGEN* |
NL |
Pdt Comm. Platform SCJF |
|
Claude APFFEL* |
F |
independent |
|
Denis PAOLINI |
F |
SOS enlevement d'enfants franco-allemand |
|
Dominique BAYLION* |
F |
SOS PAPA Alsace www.sospapa.net |
|
Gerhard HANENKAMP* |
D |
||
Gerrit ten BROEK* |
NL |
||
Ghislain DUCHATEAU* |
B |
BGMK |
|
Gilbert BAREYT* |
|
Président, Intl. Deleg. Parti des Enfants du Monde |
fax: 0033 384 97 00 22 |
Ipe SMIT |
NL |
Platform SCJF |
|
Johann WEY* |
CH |
||
Julian FITZGERALD* |
GB |
||
Kurt SCHLANERT Thomas KRIEGSCH* |
D |
ZahlVater www.zahlvater.de |
|
Michel DUDRAGNE* |
F |
Président, Parti des Enfants du Monde |
fax: 0033 3 80 42 12 33 |
Olivier HEUZE* |
F |
Parti des Enfants du Monde |
|
Philippe PAQUAY* |
B |
||
René KELLER |
CH |
VeV Argovie www.vev.ch |
|
Robert VAN ALTENA* |
NL |
Platform SCJF www.platform-scjf.nl |
|
Truus BARENDSE* |
NL |
vice-Pdt Platform SCJF |
|
Ursula KODJOE |
D |
Psychologue |
|
Case of: Joep ZANDER* |
NL |
http://huixen.daxis.nl/zander/facts.htm for facts on the case |
Tuesday 24th October 2000 |
*Signatories
please sign by return email if you wish.
Comments added:
approximately 50% of children of separated parents do not see one of their parents any more, from one to three years into the separation
Joep Zander
|
Last Updated http://joepzander.nl/decla-eng.htm : zie ook de andere pagina's |