Ontario attorney general must step in to ‘extreme’ custody case: Editorial
Published on Sun Aug 03 2014

“The case of a single mother languishing in jail for nine months over a custody case raises questions about our justice system – and cries out for intervention. Indeed, that’s what Toronto lawyer Barry Swadron, on behalf of the woman’s family, asked Ontario Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur to do in a July 14 letter…Swadron says his client is physically and financially unable to return her daughter from China while she languishes in jail. Amanda Dale, executive director of the Barbra Schlifer legal clinic for women, says: “It appears to be an incredible Catch-22 that she is involved in.”

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Read Jim Rankin’s piece in the Toronto Star, where the Schlifer ED is quoted extensively:

“Amanda Dale, executive director of the Barbra Schlifer Clinic, is familiar with the case and calls it an “extreme example” of what the legal clinic sees with women dealing simultaneously with family and criminal court matters.

“There are these contradictory intersections in the legal system where women are trying to deal with their family matters at the same time as there are outstanding, or pending, or never fully prosecuted, criminal charges, and the twain shall never meet,” said Dale. “There’s no sensible accounting for what’s going on in both sets of legal proceedings.

“The facts of the case appear to clearly call for further investigation. It appears to be an incredible Catch-22 that she’s caught in.”