When the story of a man's body being taken away by his "family" first broke, I couldn't decide which party was in the right as the man's marital status was unclear. NZ media have this annoying habit of obscuring the relationships of people to each other by using such generic terms as "partner" as to be almost completely useless in any sort of informative sense.
If the man was married, his wife had dibs on burying his body as he and her had implicitly created a new family via the marriage. However, if the man was just a live in boyfriend, albeit a boyfriend over many years, then his original family should have had precedence. That's just the way things ought to work.
In the latest article, the media calls the man the woman's "husband", so maybe they had formalised their union and therefore the man via the marriage had implicitly broken any "rights" his original family might think they have over his body.
Whatever the outcome of this, what is most disturbing is the NZ Police's reticence to follow their mandate to enforce the law. The woman originally got a court order to prevent the man's family from taking his body away, and the Police did not enforce that court order. Now they might not exhume the body. Very, very strange and disturbing.
Related Link: Body in family burial dispute to be exhumed
If the man was married, his wife had dibs on burying his body as he and her had implicitly created a new family via the marriage. However, if the man was just a live in boyfriend, albeit a boyfriend over many years, then his original family should have had precedence. That's just the way things ought to work.
In the latest article, the media calls the man the woman's "husband", so maybe they had formalised their union and therefore the man via the marriage had implicitly broken any "rights" his original family might think they have over his body.
Whatever the outcome of this, what is most disturbing is the NZ Police's reticence to follow their mandate to enforce the law. The woman originally got a court order to prevent the man's family from taking his body away, and the Police did not enforce that court order. Now they might not exhume the body. Very, very strange and disturbing.
Related Link: Body in family burial dispute to be exhumed