Updated | In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that a mechanism should be put in place to review whether convicted sex offenders should remain liable after their release from prison to notify the police of where they live or plans to travel abroad. In June 2011, the government published draft legislation to “ensure that strict [...]
Archive for the ‘Children’ Category
Will the Sex Offenders’ Register “Review Mechanism” breach human rights law?
Posted in Art. 6 | Right to Fair Trial, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Children, Criminal, In the news on July 12, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Hey, teacher! Leave those cornrows alone
Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Children, Discrimination, Education, In the news, tagged cornrows on June 20, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Updated | SG v St Gregory’s Catholic Science College [2011] EWHC 1452 (Admin) (17 June 2010) – Read judgment Most people have their first taste of injustice at school. This is hardly surprising: an institution containing hundreds of teenagers for whom rebellion is a biological imperative is always going to be difficult to control. In [...]
When to prosecute children for sexual abuse
Posted in Art. 3 | Torture / Inhumane Treatment, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case law, Case summaries, Children, CONVENTION RIGHTS, Criminal, In the news, International on June 15, 2011 | 5 Comments »
R (on the application of E and Ors) v The Director of Public Prosecutions [2011] EWHC 1465 (Admin) – Read Judgment In a case involving rather distressing facts, the High Court has quashed a decision of the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute a 14-year-old girl (identified only as “E”) for the sexual abuse of her [...]
Court orders return of children abducted from father in Norway
Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case summaries, Children, Family on June 10, 2011 |
In the matter of E (Children) [2011] UKSC – read judgment The Supreme Court has ruled that two girls, aged seven and four respectively, be returned with their mother to Norway, after she had removed them without the father’s consent. The decision was made largely under the Hague Convention on the Rights of the Child [...]
The Adoption Dilemma: the rights of parents v child’s interests
Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Children, European, Family, In the news, tagged adoption on June 2, 2011 | 3 Comments »
R. and H. v. United Kingdom (no. 35348/06) – Read judgment This ruling from Strasbourg sheds little light on how Article 8 can help adoption procedure, but it does illustrate how courts and agencies are having to square up to the deepening crisis in adoption rates. Newspaper and charity campaigns are vocal about this issue but little [...]
Sharon Shoesmith wins her appeal – Obiter J
Posted in Case summaries, Children, Employment on May 27, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Shoesmith, R (on the application of) v OFSTED & Ors [2011] EWCA Civ 642 (27 May 2011) – Read judgment In April 2005, Sharon Shoesmith was appointed as Director of Children’s Services at Haringey London Borough Council. The appointment by a Council of such an officer is a statutory requirement - Children Act 2004 s.18. “Baby [...]
Should journalists attend court?.. Part 2
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Children, Family, In the news, Media on May 22, 2011 | 73 Comments »
I asked in a recent post whether journalists need to attend court hearings to report accurately. The post arose from judgment in a family court case involving a mother’s abuse of her baby. The judge took the unusual step of criticising the Sunday Telegraph’s Christopher Booker’s reporting, which he called “unbalanced, inaccurate and just plain [...]
No quick fix for the child protection system
Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Children, Family, In the news on May 11, 2011 | 5 Comments »
The Department of Education today published the final report of Professor Eileen Munro into the child protection system in England. After extensive consultation, the report concludes that the social work profession needs to be freed from a compliance culture and stifling levels of central prescription in order to allow social workers to have more time [...]
Judge: Telegraph reporting of family case was “unbalanced, inaccurate and just plain wrong”
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Children, Family, In the news, Media, Poor reporting on May 6, 2011 | 14 Comments »
L (A Child: Media Reporting), Re [2011] EWHC B8 (Fam) (18 April 2011) – Read judgment The thought of being personally criticised in a reported judgment would make most lawyers break into a cold sweat. Some journalists wear such treatment as a badge of honour. But surely it is professionally embarrassing for a high court [...]
Child’s identity to remain a secret
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case summaries, Children, Medical on March 24, 2011 | 1 Comment »
A (A Child) v Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust [2011] EWHC 454 (QB)- read judgment A High Court judge has ruled that a seven-year-old child with severe disabilities caused by medical negligence during his birth should be the subject of an order that prohibits their identification in any newspaper report. The order was granted [...]
Balancing transparency with ‘secrecy’ in the Court of Protection – Lucy Series
Posted in Art. 10 | Freedom of Expression, Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Children, In the news, Medical, Mental Health, tagged Court of Protection on March 7, 2011 | 2 Comments »
There probably aren’t many people who want to know what ‘goes on’ in the Court of Protection more than me; it’s what I spend much of my time trying to fathom. An outsider would be forgiven for thinking that this branch of Her Majesty’s Court Service doesn’t feel that case law in this tangled [...]
Analysis: the place of religion in foster care decisions
Posted in Art. 14 | Anti-Discrimination, Art. 9 | Thought/Conscience/Religion, Case comments, Case summaries, Children, Religion on March 2, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Johns v Derby City Council and Equality and Human Rights Commission (intervening) [2011] EWHC 375 (Admin)- Read judgment Religious views opposing homosexuality are a legitimate fostering concern and the local authority’s approach to this question did not constitute religious discrimination. The claimant husband and wife applied to the defendant local authority to be approved as [...]





Abduction and the child’s “best interests” – analysis
Posted in Art. 8 | Right to Privacy/Family, Case comments, Case law, Children, Family, In the news on June 14, 2011 | 1 Comment »
E (Children) FC [2011] UKSC 27 – read judgment ; see previous post for summary This case shows some of the difficulties thrown up by the interesting tension between the primacy of children’s interests implied by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the controls on child abduction exerted by the 1980 Hague Convention. The Human [...]
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