For our column this month over at Lexis Nexis Jordans Family Law, we look at the government’s pledge to allow children to speak to judges during their cases. Nearly a decade on, this policy has still not been implemented.
The article follows Researching Reform’s Freedom Of Information request which exposes the government’s failure to act and quietly hide its decision from the public, the history of the policy itself which is hugely interesting, and we also highlight a certain government minister’s refusal to respond when we asked them for comment over on Twitter.
You can catch the article here.
Researching Reform 
The amount of cases I know of where Judges have spoken to children is high.
The problem I see often is the comments judges then make afterwards in Judgments thats astonishing, example, children intellectual, however, judge refuses to listen to their views, not just wishes and feelings but vital evidence the child gave!
Giving the child a voice in proceedings is one thing, listening to the child is a whole different entity
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That’s really interesting, Jerry. Not surprised by the judges’ perceptions of the communication. Still, this isn’t the same as the government promising to make sure every child has the right to speak to a judge, instead of relying on judicial discretion for that opportunity.
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I see the UK gov is real responsive to their people. They never asked the kids? what does it take to get the gov to actually listen to and be responsive to the very reasonable request to ask the kids? Well, I’ll answer it. The UK gov knows full well that if the kids had a say, the UK would not get so much as one child. So they ignore that route and suggest that that mere possibility and potential for future emotional harm is enough reason to steal children. Emotional harm is not even specified, much less, assured. Hurt feelings are not enough to sever a child from its instinctual attachment to its parents. You have a very wicked system over there. No crime has to occur. Only future possibilities. Any one has the potential for any number of things. but law, true sincere honest law, seeks to determine what is actually a crime and gives no attention to that which might never happen. the UK needs to be swept off into the ocean and replaced, starting over again. What is there now can not be fixed or healed. Same for the US and many other nations, too.
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How has British jurisprudence been allowed to descend to the point where judges will accept crystal ball allegations as evidence?. How can anyone predict that anyone may harm and child in the future, especially emotional harm.?. Criminal and civil law regarding the harm to children was always to present the evidence of harm that has actually occurred and arguments on how parental explanations were discrepant with such evidence.
Surely, no criminal court would accept the police taking a case into court and saying, “Well this person hasn’t actually committed a crime but we believe this person will commit a crime in the future, based on his conduct in the past”. Yet that is the basis for making Care Orders in many instances.
The legal system has gone mad to have permitted this kind of crystal ball evidence.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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A fat lot of good letting children talk to juudges when the social worker and the cafcass officer are towering over them and their parents are excluded ! They will only say what the “SS” have told them to say !
If children do talk to judges a p
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a parent should be present.
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i agree Ian,
and when parents are told by social workers their child does not want to see them or come to contact they should be present to hear the child say it in person to the parents not take it second hand from the Adoption severance squad.
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Natasha – I don’t think the policy has “been allowed to languish”, I think it has been deliberately obstructed and sabotaged by the judiciary and the legal profession. They do not want children in the courtroom, mainly because they do not know how to speak with children and are more than a little frightened to do so.
In Australia, I am informed that the last traceable occasion on which a child was permitted to speak in a Family Court was in 1991 [Pagliarella]. Ironically, the same year in which the Australian Federal government ratified and signed the UN CRoC. However they never embodied the UN CRoC into domestic law, so the ratification was merely an empty gesture and children and young people still have no human, civil, or legal rights under Australian law and no means of enforcing such rights if they were permitted them. Belatedly, the Australian Parliament put the UN CRoC into the Family Law Act amendments in 2012, but again it has been a meaningless gesture as the Family Courts merely ignore it.
Children and young people whose future care, welfare, and safety are being determined by a Family Court should have a legal right to be a party to the proceedings if they choose to do so and to:
a) Appoint and instruct a legal or lay advocate to speak on their behalf if they lack the confidence and advocacy skills to do so themselves;
b) Give testimony directly to the Court or by video link;
c) Submit sworn statements to the Court if they choose.
It is archaic and a denial of human rights that children and young people are being prevented of participation in a process whereby their entire future childhood is being determined.
Again ironically, the Australian government are applying to the U.N. for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council later this year but there are several voluntary groups and protest groups who will be bring the attention of the UN to the denial of human rights and the violations of human rights committed by the Australian government and the Courts against both adults and children in Australia.
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“refusal to respond”
this seems to be the norm with most Govt depts and LAs.
they only answer what they want to.
the Transparency Project sent a FOi request to Sunderland LA in late 2016 asking if they still use Adoption targets. they failed to respond.
i did ask the TP to report them to the information commissioner but TP said they will not be doing that due to Resources etc and need to concentrate on other priorities.
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