Difference between revisions of "The Court System for Family Matters"

Our court system has its origins hundreds of years ago in England. In the middle ages, people would come to the king or queen on special days set aside for the hearing of "petitions," complaints made by someone (the ''petitioner'') against someone else (the ''respondent''). If the petition got heard, and not all did, the king would make a decision that the parties were obliged to accept, putting an end to the complaint.

As the rule of law became more and more important in maintaining a civil society and the law itself became more and more complicated, kings and queens began to farm out the job of hearing petitions to people specially appointed to hear them, called judges. Eventually the monarchy got out of the business altogether, and left the hearing of petitions to the judges. The English court system became more complex as time went on, and different types of courts, like the Courts of Equity and the Courts of the Exchequer, were eventually set up to deal with different kinds of problems.

Each successive level of court is "superior" to the other, with the Provincial Court being the lowest level of court and the Court of Appeal being the highest. Above our Court of Appeal is the Supreme Court of Canada, which deals with cases from all of the courts of appeal across Canada.

The Provincial Court and the Supreme Court of British Columbia are where the bulk of family law court proceedings are heard. The Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada only hear appeals of decisions made by the lower courts. As a result, only a few family law cases are brought to the Court of Appeal. Fewer still are brought to the Supreme Court of Canada, partly because that court must give permission to hear appeals in non-criminal cases and partly because it can cost a great deal of money to take a case that far. Appeals generally tend to be complicated and fairly expensive. This generally discourages carrying cases beyond trial.

The Provincial Court can only deal with issues relating to parenting and the care of children, child support, spousal support, and protection orders. The Supreme Court has the authority to deal with all of those issues as well, but only the Supreme Court can make an order for divorce, make other orders under the ''Divorce Act'', or make orders about the division of family property and family debts.