GrandParent And Rights To Grandchildren In Canada

Lots of different articles are devoted to the problems of custody and access. Parents are struggling against each other in courts so hard that it is sometimes hard to define who is right and what decision should be made by the court. In this custody war that is usually accompanied by a nervous divorce almost no one cares about the rights of grandparents. In this article we will bring more light to this problem. In Canada there were two main cases of grandparents and grandchildren: Chapman v. Chapman in 2001 and Dobre v. Dobre in 2004. Both of them were not accompanied by divorce, but had some other related issues.

Chapman v. Chapman
In 1998 Ester Chapman the grandmother of ten-year-old Eric Chapman and his eight-year-old sister Leanna applied to the court for monthly visits and weekly telephone contact with her two grandchildren. The grandmother had visits with the children three to six times annually and the visits were almost always in the presence of their parents, because they were concerned over the grandmother's diminished capacity to care for the children on her own. The issue in this case was whether access by a grandparent to grandchildren who live with their parents should be imposed over the wishes of those parents and children. The case lasted three years and on March 2, 2001 the Ontario Court of Appeal decided that that it is the children's parents that have total and final authority to determine if and when the children visit with their grandmother. In the decision of the court it was mentioned that the parents are responsible for the welfare of the children and they carry this legal duty alone. It was also mentioned that the decision was made in the best interests of the children that were represented by their parents in the court. So the parents in the end came out as the right ones.

Dobre v. Dobre
The second case had a completely different ending. In 2004 the grandparents from the fathers' side applied to the court for access to their grandchildren, five-year-old Alexandra and three-year-old Antonio. The case came into court but unfortunately father was not present at the case because he was attending a treatment program for his drug addiction. The application was opposed only by the mother of the children. In this case the court decided that it will be in the interest of the children to have meetings with their grandparents and granted the grandparents supervised access for three hours per week at an access centre.

These two different cases show that in similar situation the main influence are the outer factors, the court is still comparing both sides and normal grandparents look much better that a couple where one of the spouses is a drug addict. So as you see no serious history in this type of custody is written and any new case can bring a new decision and maybe some changes in custody laws. That is a good thing, the bad thing is that unfortunately in the modern world it even comes to courts when parents and grandparents can not agree.


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