THE lawyer representing 80 practising solicitors in the Borders fears that all family business, including adoption, divorce and custody cases currently dealt with by courts in the region, will be transferred to Edinburgh from 2014, writes Andrew Keddie.
This, says Greig McDonell, will result in huge inconvenience and travel costs for interested parties, not least his own profession in which many practices have seen a major loss of income with the stagnation in house sales.
Mr McDonell is chairman of a Borders-wide committee of solicitors set up to respond to controversial proposals by the Scottish Court Service (SCS) which, in a bid to cut spending by 20 per cent, wants consideration of the closure of three of the region’s courts – Selkirk, Duns and Peebles.
Last week we reported how, under the proposals, jury trials would no longer take place at Jedburgh Sheriff Court but would be heard in Edinburgh.
On Friday, Mr McDonell attended a dialogue meeting organised by SCS at an Edinburgh Hotel. Also in attendance was Borders sheriff Kevin Drummond who has already defended the four court set-up.
“The removal of family cases to be heard by a specialist sheriff in Edinburgh was raised at the meeting; it is a very worrying suggestion and one, I’m sure, the three law faculties in the region will oppose,” said Mr McDonell. “Such a scenario will make life very difficult for people in already traumatic circumstances. It may save the SCS money but the tab will still have to be met from other public funds.”
However, he said he had taken some comfort from Friday’s meeting and SCS chief executive Eleanour Emberson’s acknowledgment of issues arising from a Borders perspective.
The SCS proposals are due to go out to public consultation in the autumn.
Email to a friend
Print this pageSource: www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding star makes first public appearance since announcing plans for divorce - Daily Mail
- Josie McFayden was just 16 when she married Swanley on the hit TV show
- After less than two years of marriage the couple are to divorce
- 'I didn’t want to be bullied I still wanted to be treated fair,' she says
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding star Josie McFayden stepped into the public spotlight today for the first time since announcing her decision to divorce from husband Swanley Smith.
The duo, who were the first couple to marry on the hit TV show in front of 6.5million viewers two years ago, split amid a string of fights and blazing rows.
Just last month when the separation came to light she threatened to burn her five-stone net and diamante wedding gown, but today at the ITV studios in London she remained calm and composed.
Calm and composed: Josie McFadyen pictured outside the ITV studios
Sporting highlighted tresses and red lipstick the 18-year-old told This Morning presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby: 'No, I would never burn it, my mummy and my daddy got me that dress and that something they didn’t know was going to not work out, it’s not their fault, it’s not the dress's fault, it’s Swanley’s fault.'
'At the time I was really angry with Swanley.'
Ms McFayden was just 16 when she married Swanley in an enormous frilly white frock followed by a team of bridesmaids dressed in hot pink in a ceremony in July 2010.
Now after less than two years of marriage and the birth of a daughter, Josie, 18, is planning a divorce from her husband.
Lavish affair: Swanley and Josie Smith married in an extravagant ceremony when she was just 16, in front of 6.5million viewers
Rocky relationship: The pair split after less than two years of marriage following constant fights
Josie has moved out of the couple's caravan and is living in a house in Middlesex with their eight-month-old child, also called Josie, and her mother.
Josie previously told how she was 'swept off her feet' by Swanley, 21, who she met on a social networking site six months before they married in her dream fairytale wedding.
But she revealed that cracks started to appear just days after the wedding and accused Swanley of 'bullying her.'
She said: 'Obviously every girl wants to get married… but it just never worked out for me it was a nightmare from day one.
'I think things changed and I got to know the real him. It was like he was putting on this big lie.
'He’d stop me from seeing my mum and my brothers and sister. He would just call them names.
'Physically he put me down in myself... I didn’t want to be bullied I still wanted to be treated fair.'
No holds barred: Guests typically dress to impress in the traveller weddings featured on the hit programme
Big day: Josie's little brother John McFadyen, 18, after saying his vows on the show to Cheyenne Pidgley, 16, who he met at his sister's wedding reception
In response Swanley said: 'How can Josie feel bullied when she had the freedom to do what she wanted. If she wanted to go out with friends then it didn’t bother me.'
Josie said she tried to make the marriage work as the travelling community frowns upon divorce and believe that the family comes before anything else. She admitted that 'in her world' the man comes first and wives are expected to obey.
But the final straw came when she discovered Swanley had secretly spent their savings.
The couple received a 105,000 compensation payment from Surrey County Council after they were forced to leave the site where they were living in Caterham when it was declared contaminated.
But Josie claimed she didn't see any of the money while her husband gave half to his family and spent the rest buying himself X Box games and a 13,000 Rolex watch.
She revealed that Swanley hasn't been to visit his daughter since the couple split but she hopes he will still play a part in her life.
Josie admitted that after her own experience she hopes her daughter won't get married until she's in her twenties. 'I did get married too young. I thought I was ready but I think I was more in love with being in love.'
She added that she knows many other travelling couples who married young and are still very happy, including her brother John McFadyen who met his wife Cheyenne at her own wedding.
She is now back with dad Chris and mum Josie at their home in Middlesex, where she is sharing a room with her sister Berry, 14.
The bigger the better: Bride Danielle Marry, from Corby, Northamptonshire, and her bridesmaids wore huge dresses typical of the TV show
Young love: Danielle and Brendan Marry saying their vows at Our Lady Of Walsingham Catholic Church in Corby, Northamptonshire, on series four of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding earlier this month
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
USA Muslim Matrimonial - Owen Sound Sun Times
We must have heard several love stories which happened irrespective of borders and must have wondered how they’d materialized it, how they met, how they started it off and finally how in the world they struck the chord and decided to get settled. If you think that such stories are limited to only privileged few, think again. Zarooratrishta.com brings you the secret of the overseas marriage from the country where love is in the air. We bring you the best possible matrimonial solution for your bride or groom from the genuine and verified single Muslims in US so that your overseas pursuit for a Muslim partner can become a lot easier. We keep a verified database of single Muslims in US and are currently on the brink of becoming the pioneers of Muslim Matrimonial USA.
Usually Muslim Marriage Sites offer you matrimony from only area of your native or residence or even if they happen to offer you matrimonies from across the planet, you don’t have the option to verify it as profile photos may be misleading. We keep a thoroughly verified database of handpicked Muslim matrimonies USA because we know that nikah is usually the affair of grand celebrations, not keeping up with apprehensions that come supplementary with its planning for which zarooratrishta.com offers you a complete peace of mind so that your celebrations remain celebrations not only for your friends or relatives but for you as well.
Source: www.owensoundsuntimes.com
Toughen up on human rights or we'll change the law, May tells judges who refuse to deport foreign criminals - Daily Mail
|
Theresa May yesterday declared war on judges who refuse to deport foreign criminals because of their human rights.
The Home Secretary said the courts should stop allowing overseas prisoners, law-breakers and illegal immigrants to stay in Britain on the grounds that they have a right to a family life.
She promised a vote in Parliament to ram home to judges ‘what the public believe’ and persuade them ‘to take into account what Parliament has said’.
Talking tough: Mrs May on the Andrew Marr show yesterday
Failure by the judiciary to listen will result in new laws to curb the exploitation of the human rights legislation by foreign criminals, Mrs May said.
Her move to take on the courts – to be launched in a Commons statement tomorrow – met with criticism from sceptical Tory backbenchers who believe statements in Parliament will not be enough to rein in the judges.
A leading immigration pressure group added that Britain would need to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights before Parliament could regain the right to set immigration law.
Mrs May’s attack follows a decade of frustration for successive Home Secretaries at the refusal of courts to uphold immigration rules.
Most recently there has been outrage over cases in which criminals have avoided deportation by pleading that their removal would breach the family life clause of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Among them was Aso Mohammed Ibrahim, a failed asylum seeker and repeat offender who ran down and killed 12-year-old Amy Houston – and fled the scene – while disqualified from driving.
A judge subsequently allowed him to remain here because he had two children with a British woman.
Figures show that more than 100 criminals a month whom ministers hope to deport are released from jail to go free on the streets. They routinely plead they have a right to a family life here.
Tory backbencher Dominic Raab is calling for an Act of Parliament to 'stop the rot'
Last autumn Mrs May opened her battle with the judiciary at the Tory conference when she spoke of a case in which a judge took into account a pet cat as a reason to allow an illegal immigrant to stay.
The clause repeatedly used by foreign offenders is Article Eight of the Convention, which says that everyone has a ‘right to private and family life’.
The clause, enshrined in British law by the Human Rights Act, has become a catch-all used to prevent the deportation of criminals, block the prosecution of those who help sick relatives commit suicide, and even suppress the public exposure of footballers who cheat on their wives.
Mrs May told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘What I’m going to do is actually set out the rules that say this is what Parliament, this is what the public believe is how you balance the public interest against the individual’s interest.’
She said lawyers had complained that the courts had not been given clear Parliamentary guidance on what the right to a family life should be. ‘Parliament is going to set that out,’ she said.
‘We are not just making it as a Government statement. We are going to ask Parliament to vote on this, to say very clearly what we think constitutes the right to a family life.
‘I would expect that judges will look at what Parliament will say and that they will follow and take into account what Parliament has said. If they don’t then we will have to look at other measures and that could include Parliamentary legislation.’
But some senior Tory back- benchers doubted that a vote by MPs would make an impact.
Dominic Raab said: ‘Ministers are right to tackle the abuse of Article Eight by foreign criminals. But tinkering with guidance and resolutions of the House of Commons won’t stem the judicial legislation. As the Lord Chief Justice has pointed out, it will take an Act of Parliament to stop the rot.’
Sir Andrew Green, of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: ‘If the judges won’t listen to Parliament we must look again at our membership of the European Court of Human Rights.’
n Immigrants will no longer be able to live on benefits by marrying a British citizen, Mrs May said yesterday. She promised rules to stop husbands or wives bringing a spouse or family into the country from outside Europe unless they have an income of 18,600.
The family migration income threshold will rise to 27,200 if there are three children.
Mrs May said 18,600 was ‘the point at which people would not normally be reliant on income related benefits’, adding: ‘We think it is right that somebody who is wanting to bring somebody into the UK to join them as a spouse or a partner should be able to support them financially.’
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
Divorce Hotel: Founder Jim Halfens Dishes On Hotel - Huffington Post
On May 26 the New York Times reported on the Divorce Hotel, a Netherlands-based company that enables married couples to take a rather unusual trip -- for about $3,000, spouses can go away for a long weekend and return as exes (by comparison, an average divorce in the Netherlands costs between $5,000 and $10,000 and can take weeks, even months to finalize). Despite its name, the Divorce Hotel is not actually one physical structure; the company partners with multiple boutique hotels to offer its clients a swifter, cheaper -- and chicer -- way to call it quits (locations in New York and Los Angeles are currently in the works). To learn more about this unusual service, HuffPost Divorce asked founder and general manager Jim Halfens to dish on what really goes on when a couple checks into the Divorce Hotel for the weekend.
How do you help your divorcing guests feel at ease?
We want to give couples the feeling of being at home. One of the suites [we do the divorce proceedings in] has a fireplace. That said, we also want to take them out of their comfort zone -- if they live in the south, we invite them to [a hotel location] in the north. This also helps keep them far away from new partners or their mother-in-laws.
How do you keep your divorces discreet when there are also regular hotel guests staying at the hotel?
Our clients have their privacy -- nobody knows they are checking in for their divorce. We work in specific departments of the hotel. All conversations take place in suites behind closed doors.
Our guests can use the hotel for their purposes, and walk around freely, but we don’t always know how people will react [to the divorce process] -- sometimes it’s emotional, sometimes it’s more businesslike -- so we always have staff members around. If [a client] is getting emotional and walking around the hallways, someone will be there to comfort them. They aren't creepy or anything, but they are trained and know what to do.
What's the most surprising thing you've seen among the couples who have stayed at your hotel?
There was a husband who ordered a bottle of champagne to toast on a new future. He wished his ex-wife all the best. It was a fantastic moment. We also had a divorce and a wedding on the same day. We were fully booked last December and a divorcing couple wanted a specific hotel, but there was only one date available. The hotel warned me that there was also a wedding there that day -- there would be no escaping it, there would be flowers everywhere. But, if couple didn’t come that day, they would have had to wait on the list for two months. I called the wife and she said she didn’t mind at all. When the couple arrived, they went to check out the wedding. They looked around, looked at the wedding dress. Then they had dinner that night downstairs right next to the wedding party.
Wait, they had dinner together? Do couples usually do that?
Yes, they ate together. The divorcing couples typically have dinner together. And breakfast together in the morning. We don’t mandate that they do anything -– everything is up to the couple. Couples can also choose their rooms. Sometimes they prefer to be close to each other, sometimes they prefer to be far away. One couple decided to sleep together. They emailed me and said, “This might be a strange question” then asked to be in one room.
Has a couple ever come to the hotel but not get divorced?
We’ve been successful with every couple except for one. The guy was trying to get a deal in his favor and disadvantage his wife in every way. The reason he wanted to do the divorce quickly [with the Divorce Hotel] was to blind her of the important details of his company and his possessions and money. He didn’t give enough information to our professionals and more investigation was needed. In the Netherlands, a mediator is not allowed to take a position [or give preference to one spouse], so we sent the couple to work with lawyers.
Can you tell me more about the reality show that you’re creating?
People might think “Why should I go to the Divorce Hotel for arranging my divorce?” We’ll show [our process] in an emotional TV show with wonderful moments -- something you would never expect in a program about divorce. I want to show that what happens in our hotel is very special. I don’t want to [show] creepy, "Jerry Springer," horrible shit.
Do you have a personal connection to divorce?
I have never married or divorced. I am convinced that I will marry in the future. I believe in real love. But not everybody is lucky to find it, so I would like to help those people split up in a positive way.
What do you mean by “positive way”?
Some people have the mindset that, if they divorce, they need to ruin their spouse. I think it’s better to do it quickly. It’s better for your money, of course, but it’s more about the end result: I had an experience with a woman told me that she had problems with her friends because they told her things like, “Why don’t you ruin his life? He wants the divorce, take what you can and get his money.” This woman told me that she didn’t want to ruin his life, personally or financially. She said, “My intention is to be able to, if I run into him in two years, be on speaking teams with this guy.”
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Divorce no reason to party - The Age
[getrss.in: unable to retrieve full-text content]
Are divorce parties in bad taste? We love rituals. We do. They make us feel connected and purposeful. Rituals may be religious, or not. They may be shared with hundreds or few. But we love them because they are transformative. Weddings transform single ...Source: www.theage.com.au
Undoing health law could have messy ripple effects - The Guardian
RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — It sounds like a silver lining. Even if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama's health care law, employers can keep offering popular coverage for the young adult children of their workers.
But here's the catch: The parents' taxes would go up.
That's only one of the messy potential ripple effects when the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the Affordable Care Act this month. The law affects most major components of the U.S. health care system in its effort to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people.
Because the legislation is so complicated, an orderly unwinding would prove difficult if it were overturned entirely or in part.
Better Medicare prescription benefits, currently saving hundreds of dollars for older people with high drug costs, would be suspended. Ditto for preventive care with no co-payments, now available to retirees and working families alike.
Partially overturning the law could leave hospitals, insurers and other service providers on the hook for tax increases and spending cuts without the law's promise of more paying customers to offset losses.
If the law is upheld, other kinds of complications could result.
The nation is so divided that states led by Republicans are largely unprepared to carry out critical requirements such as creating insurance markets. Things may not settle down.
"At the end of the day, I don't think any of the major players in the health insurance industry or the provider community really wants to see the whole thing overturned," said Christine Ferguson, a health policy expert who was commissioner of public health in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney was governor.
"Even though this is not the most ideal solution, at least it is moving us forward, and it does infuse some money into the system for coverage," said Ferguson, now at George Washington University. As the GOP presidential candidate, Romney has pledged to wipe Obama's law off the books. But he defends his Massachusetts law that served as a prototype for Obama's.
While it's unclear how the justices will rule, oral arguments did not go well for the Obama administration. The central issue is whether the government can require individuals to have health insurance and fine them if they don't.
That mandate takes effect in 2014, at the same time that the law would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with existing health problems. Most experts say the coverage guarantee would balloon costs unless virtually all people joined the insurance pool.
Opponents say Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by issuing the insurance mandate. The administration says the requirement is permissible because it serves to regulate interstate commerce. Most people already are insured. The law provides subsidies to help uninsured middle-class households pay premiums and expands Medicaid to pick up more low-income people.
The coverage for young adults up to age 26 on a parent's health insurance is a popular provision that no one's arguing about. A report last week from the Commonwealth Fund estimated that 6.6 million young adults have taken advantage of the benefit, while a new Gallup survey showed the uninsured rate for people age 18-25 continues to decline, down to 23 percent from 28 percent when the law took effect.
Families will be watching to see if their 20-somethings transitioning to the work world will get to keep that newfound security.
Because the benefit is a winner with consumers, experts say many employers and insurers would look for ways to keep offering it even if there's no legal requirement to do so. On Monday, UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's largest insurer, is announcing that it will continue to offer coverage to young adults even if the health care law is struck down.
But economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute says many parents would pay higher taxes as a result because they would have to pay for the young adult's coverage with after-tax dollars. Under the health care law, that coverage now comes out of pre-tax dollars.
Fronstin says there's no way to tell exactly how much that tax increase might be, but a couple of hundred dollars a year or more is a reasonable ballpark estimate. Upper-income taxpayers would have a greater liability.
"Adult children aren't necessarily dependents for tax purposes, but an employer can allow anyone to be on a plan, just like they now allow domestic partners," said Fronstin. "If your employer said, 'I'm going to let you keep this,' it would become a taxable benefit for certain people."
Advocates for the elderly are also worried about untoward ripple effects.
If the entire law is overturned, seniors with high prescription costs in Medicare's "donut hole" coverage gap could lose annual discounts averaging about $600. AARP policy director David Certner says he would hope the discounts could remain in place at least through the end of this year.
Yet that might not be possible. Lacking legal authority, Medicare would have to take away the discounts. Drugmakers, now bearing the cost, could decide they want to keep offering discounts voluntarily. But then they'd risk running afoul of other federal rules that bar medical providers from offering financial inducements to Medicare recipients.
"I don't think anyone has any idea," said Certner.
A mixed verdict from the high court would be the most confusing outcome. Some parts of the law would be struck down while others lurch ahead.
That kind of result would seem to call for Congress to step in and smooth any necessary adjustments. Yet partisan divisions on Capitol Hill are so intense that hardly anyone sees a chance that would happen this year.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.