George Palmer

I was very, very happy that they were there to see it.

That is a traditional jurisdiction that the Supreme Court, every Supreme Court has.

It's an inheritance from the English system when the church courts...

we're in charge, this is from medieval times, we're in charge of

protecting the weak and vulnerable in society.

That then later translated into a compartment of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

Now, it might be those who have a mental illness, those who are particularly vulnerable to undue influence or scams, or it's also to do with having overall supervision of the adoption process involved.

the Supreme Court has to approve every adoption.

Now, there's obviously a process where that goes through many, many, many layers before it actually comes up for final approval.

But as the judge, you have to make sure that all the procedures are followed and properly followed.

And if there's anything that catches your attention, something might not be right, something might be amiss,

then you have to investigate and find out.

And if an adoption is contested by the natural parent, then that case comes into the Supreme Court.

And this is a very important jurisdiction because, as you can imagine, there are quite a few cases where children are taken away from a parent, often a single mother.

And the mother has probably been experiencing enormous difficulties in her life.

There's a common pattern, unfortunately.

Often the single mother has been abused as a child, has a drug problem or had an alcohol problem, and the child is born and the social workers in the hospital immediately say, this mother is not going to be able to look after this child properly.

And so the system is alerted.

So you can imagine how a mother who has been through that experience feels being told you are not even fit to be the mother of your child.

It is devastating.