UK: Child’s Right To Be Heard in Judicial or Administrative Proceedings

“We hear…less about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Britain signed up to in 1989. Article 12 guarantees that a child shall be “provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial or administrative proceedings affecting the child”. We hear little, too, of the landmark ruling of our Supreme Court last year, W (Children) UKSC 12, which explicitly reformulated the law on allowing children “to give live evidence in family proceedings” that affect the child’s future, reversing the previous presumption that it was only in exceptional cases that “a child should be so called”.

Among all the cases I have been following closely in recent months where children have, I believe, been wrongly removed by social workers and courts from loving, responsible parents, four stand out as particularly relevant in this respect. They all centre on children between the ages of 11 and 14 who are intelligent and articulate (I have spoken to two of them by telephone). All were previously happy living with their parents and doing well at school. All are now languishing miserably in foster care, where three have complained about being physically and emotionally maltreated.

The courts continue to deny rights to stolen children
[The Telegraph 10/15/11 by Christopher Booker]

For more on child centered placements, read our Tuesday Term post here.

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