Legal Question in Family Law in Canada

Re: Refusing to appear for Supervised Visitation

This reply is specific to British columbia, as noted on the website. If you do not live with the child in British Columbia,this answer may be incorrect. The only advice any ehtical lawyer can give you is that you must obey the court order until and unless it is changed. If you and the child have lived in B.C. for a considerable period of time (at least a year) and moved here before the court order giving the biological father access, then you have a reasonably good chance of the courts in B.C. assuming jurisdiction and varying the order so as to end access by the biological father or of compelling him to visit the child rather than the reverse. If however you have left the U.S. to avoid the court order, your chances are not as good. Without many more specific details of your case, more definite advice can not be given. You are obligated however to obey the court order until it is changed. Under certian circumstances failure to obey the court order (i.e. refusal to allow access) can result in your being punished for contempt of court; you may even spoil your chances of the courts in B.C. accepting jurisdiction and thus leaving you to deal witht he court that made the original order, which may or may not be sympathetic. In many cases the existence of the international border is irrelevant-court orders have effect across jurisdictions, and can in many instances be enforced quite easily in a jurisdiction far remved from the one that made the original order.