And wins, natch. Look at it this way: If they’re not going to recognize free speech rights, why would they recognize parental rights? Via JWF:
A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl’s grounding, overturning her father’s punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet, his lawyer said Wednesday.
The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting “inappropriate” pictures of herself online using a friend’s computer.
The father’s lawyer Kim Beaudoin said the disciplinary measures were for the girl’s “own protection” and is appealing the ruling…
According to court documents, the girl’s Internet transgression was just the latest in a string of broken house rules. Even so, Justice Suzanne Tessier found her punishment too severe.
Beaudoin noted the girl used a court-appointed lawyer in her parents’ 10-year custody dispute to launch her landmark case against dear old dad.
There has to be more to this than what’s here. The fact that the decision was made in the context of a custody dispute makes me think maybe the girl’s mother disagreed with the father about the punishment and consented to let the girl ask the judge to decide between them. A cursory googling reveals precious little information, though, aside from this report from Canwest, in which the father’s lawyer is quoted as lamenting the fact that this wasn’t settled the way parent/child disputes are supposed to be settled — in “youth court.”
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