8th August, 2008 Analogy 2: Legal and General

On a recent IHDG post I was trying to explain why I was uncomfortable about someone saying that their horse that they were having problems with was just being a bloody mare and was a tart. It seemed to me that they were seeing her as an adversary rather than as a partner or team mate. It made me think about my old job in the courts where criminal cases were decided on an adversarial basis, i.e. the two parties would fight it out and the judge would decide who had won. In domestic and care cases concerning children, the emphasis is on truth and the proceedings are inquisitorial, i.e. aimed at getting together as much information as possible to decide what was in the best interests of the child. In law, the best interests of the child are paramount. What if we worked with (and not against) our horses in the same way? It would still be our decision as to what was in the best interests of "the child" although some weight is always given to what the child wants taking into account that a child may be biased by which parent is likely to be the most generous and easy going but everyone involved would be working as a team to get the best outcome for that child. In an adversarial system, there tend to be outright winners and losers and they are rarely able to be friends again afterwards.