Judge includes 'letter' to child in divorce case ruling in south Taiwan
南台灣離婚判決書中附上法官給孩子的“信件”
| 'I have the responsibility to talk to you because you are the person who is most affected by the case': Judge
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A judge in Kaohsiung included a letter to a nine-year-old in the ruling on his parents’ divorce case, telling the boy that no one knows the reasons behind his parents’ marriage breakdown and assuring him that his mother and father's love for him is the real truth. The child was born to the couple in 2013, two years after they got married. However, due to their different approaches to parenting and the involvement of their own parents, the couple had many arguments over the years, CNA reported. They tried family and marriage counseling in 2017, but as they continued to feel they could not understand each other, they separated the following year. The wife filed for divorce and child custody in 2020, and after more than a year of legal proceedings, which included consultations with social welfare groups, the judge ruled in favor of the mother. However, the judge made the uncommon decision to leave a “letter” to the child in the verdict. The judge wrote, “I’m the uncle judge who talked to you in court in 2020. I don’t know if you still remember. I'm not sure if you will come across the ruling and read it, but if you do, I hope you read the following. “What I wrote prior to this moment is what I had to write as a judge to make readers understand why I made such a decision, but I feel I have the responsibility to talk to you because you are the person who is most affected by the case. You’re absolutely not just a name mentioned in the verdict.” The message continues: “When Uncle was your age, I only thought of little things like where to play after school and what to eat for dinner, but you’re bearing pressure and going through hardship that is unbefitting of your age.” The judge went on: “Both your father and mother love you very much. Maybe during their fighting over the years, you felt things were going rough and you were tired, but Uncle believes (at least from what I have seen in more than a year), they were working very hard to love you in their own way. Maybe some ways made you unhappy, but they each truly believed their own way was the best way to love you and the best for you.” “As a matter of fact, Uncle really hopes you don’t know anything about (the quarreling over the lawsuit) because those were the attacks they had to hurl at each other in order to fight for separation as well as the right to care for you,” the message read. “But you must please believe your loving father and mother, who wish you happiness, are both the best, and this is the only truth.” A Taitung lawyer, Wu Han-cheng (吳漢成), posted the letter on Facebook Thursday (Jan. 13), praising the judge as good, hardworking, and humane. One netizen commented, “This is a heartwarming ruling.” |
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| George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer | |
| 2022-01-13 |
