You want there to be a process for Apple to give your account away to someone else against your wishes?
That's a gross mischaracterization. This is Apple refusing to give control of the accounts of children to the person with parental control of the children. People demanding that this only be done under court order are neglecting to note the fact that there is already a court order giving her parental control, which is in the first paragraph of the summary.
I've been through this. My Apple ID now ends in +A because my ex-fiancé owns the one with my regular address. Because it was easier for me to give it to her and start over. Would I have preferred a way to split the account so she could keep her purchases and I could keep Angry Birds? Yes. But there wasn't one, so I did what I had to.
No, you have not been through this, because that is a wholly different scenario. There are literally zero similarities between this and that because you were using a shared account. That was completely your own fault. In this case, the children have their own accounts, and Apple is refusing to recognize a court order giving care, custody, and control control of those children to a specific parent. Instead they are arguing that their rules are more important than those of the government, and willfully assisting a parent without CCC of the children with abuse of a custody agreement despite being provided evidence of this CCC.