There were dozens of legal issues that fascinated me in 2012 and many of my subscribers and drop-in readers must have felt the same way, because they read the stories and made their comments, both on Lawdiva and on my Facebook page.
2012 highlights include:
January 2012- Heidi Klum and singer Seal separated, in spite of their public annual renewal of vows. Apparently, their annual recommittment to one another meant as much to them as their original “until death do us part”.
Two other stories captured my interest and yours, namely, the story of the Russian orphan returned to Russia by his American adopted mother and of course, same-sex divorce became a reality falling on the heels of same-sex marriage.
February 2012- A group of concerned citizens in Sarnia, Ontario initiated Canadians for Family Law Reform and held rallies and peaceful protests about the state of family law in Ontario.
As well, a family lawyer stateside who mistakenly released a child’s passport to her mother, only to have the mother flee to Spain with the child, was ordered to pay damages of $950,000 to the child’s father, for his inadvertent assistance in the child’s abduction.
March 2012- Canada was introduced to transgendered Miss Universe Canada Jenna Taleckova and the Ontario courts were asked to strike down the laws criminalizing prostitution, a case that will now go to the Supreme Court of Canada.
April 2012- A Public Sex Offender Registry was established in Calgary, Alberta, while in British Columbia, serial murderer and sex offender Robert Willy Pickton’s horrendous crimes became the focus of an inquiry that got off on the wrong foot and never quite made it back on track.
May 2012- The story of Madam Justice Lori Douglas went viral when the Canadian Judicial Counsel commenced their Inquiry in May. You couldn’t make up a more titillating tale of power, prestige, and sex.
June 2012- The sudden split of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes saturated the media and Lawdiva readers lapped it up. The second biggest story in June was the announcement of British Columbia’s new Family Law Act, legislation intended to tranform family law from an adversarial model to “court as the last resort”, introducing family law arbitration as a way to resolve family law disputes.
Tomorrow will focus on the highlights from July 2012 to December…Happy New Year
Lawdiva aka Georgialee Lang
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