Angelina Jolie wins her divorce from Brad Pitt when a private court disqualifies him. What is the status of custody now?

Angelina Jolie wins her divorce from Brad Pitt when a private court disqualifies him. What is the status of custody now? 

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's long-awaited divorce was further delayed on Friday as a California appeals court granted Jolie a huge victory by dismissing the private judge who presided over the couple's breakup and acrimonious custody battle.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal agreed with Jolie that Judge John Ouderkirk failed to disclose his financial ties with Pitt's lawyers in a timely way, creating concerns about his impartiality.

“When combined with the evidence revealed about Judge Ouderkirk's previous professional ties with Pitt's lawyers, an objective person who is aware of all the circumstances may legitimately have doubts about the judge's capacity to be impartial. The court determined that disqualification is warranted.

The ruling means that the couple's five young children's custody battle, which was about to come to a close, might be restarted with a new judge. The couple has six children, the oldest of whom, Maddox, is 19 years old.

Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 15, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 12, are their other children.

What happens to Angelina Jolie's children if she and Brad Pitt divorce?

The judge had previously decided that the couple was divorced, but the child custody problems had been separated. The state Supreme Court can hear an appeal of Friday's decision, but Pitt would have to be granted permission, which isn't assured.

The effort at disqualification, according to Pitt's lawyer, Ted Boutrous, was a delaying ploy by Jolie to prevent Ouderkirk's recent provisional custody judgment, which is favorable to Pitt, from taking effect.

According to Brent Kaspar, a divorce lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area, what happens next is likely to be determined by Pitt. Pitt's attorneys will have to take his case to a public judge in family court unless the two parties can agree on a new private judge to hear the custody issue.

"They choose another private judge and go back to square one," Kaspar told USA TODAY. "It's a reset back to what custody was before to (Ouderkirk's) ruling." "Pitt's recourse is to go to a family law court judge and submit a request to change custody" if Jolie refuses to consent to a different judge.

In either case, a final resolution is postponed, perhaps allowing at least some of the older children to reach adulthood.

Even if a new judge is appointed, whether public or private, Los Angeles family law attorney Christopher Melcher believes Jolie's attempt to deny shared custody would fail.

"There's no guarantee she'll receive a different decision from a new judge," Melcher told USA TODAY, adding that Jolie would have to provide specific proof that shared custody would be detrimental to the children's best interests, which is the standard in custody disputes. "In the previous five years, we haven't heard anything terrible about Pitt's parenting."

Why did they employ a private judge in the first place?

Pitt and Jolie, like many other famous couples, hired their own judge to increase their privacy throughout the divorce procedures, which began almost four years ago. The judge they chose to marry them in 2014 was Ouderkirk.

When Jolie requested him to disqualify himself in a filing in August, Ouderkirk rejected. Jolie's plea for disqualification came too late, according to a lower court judge. Jolie's lawyers then filed an appeal.

The appeals court heard oral arguments on July 9 to determine whether Ouderkirk had followed ethical guidelines closely enough by disclosing new business dealings in a timely way.

In California, private judges are generally retired superior court justices with professional ties to the county's lawyers.

Boutrous, Pitt's lawyer, argued that Jolie's complaint to the judge was "game-playing." He described Jolie as a "smart lady with skilled attorneys" who had known about things needing Ouderkirk's disclosure all along but did not protest until she started losing in his court.

At the hearing, Jolie's attorney Olson stated, "If you're going to play the role of a hired private judge, you have to play by the rules, and the rules are quite clear; they demand complete openness." “Matters that should have been made public were not made public.”.."Rules with no consequences are meaningless."

Although the panel questioned whether private judges should be allowed in California at all, its decision solely pertains to Ouderkirk.

“The main problem here is the impression of prejudice (in the courts)," Kaspar added. "The legal system will not function if the public does not trust the fact-finders, and this holds true for both public and private judges." By requiring that all judges make these critical disclosures, the appellate court hopes to safeguard the public's perception of all judges.”