The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam and assignment questions. Each book includes key debates, typical questions, diagram answer plans, suggested answers, author commentary, and tips to gain extra marks. This chapter considers children’s rights and private law relating to children. The first essay question focuses on the rights of the child to make his or her own decisions and to participate in private law proceedings, whilst the second examines how the law ensures that children have a relationship with both parents after separation. The third question is a problem scenario that requires discussion of orders under s. 8 of the Children Act 1989, the welfare principle, and the welfare checklist. The final problem question concerns inherent jurisdiction and the right of a child to refuse medical treatment.
Chapter
9. The Law Relating to Children: Children’s Rights and Private Law
Chapter
12. Human Rights, Children’s Rights, and Family Law
Helen Stalford, Seamus Byrne, and Nazia Yaqub
This chapter explores children’s rights in the context of family law and family life. It aims to look at family law through the lens of the human rights of children and the associated theoretical, doctrinal, and empirical scholarship. It begins with a brief overview of the international children’s rights framework underpinning this area, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights. It then points to some of the cultural, legal, and practical obstacles to the protection of children’s rights in the context of family law. The updated chapter responds to changes in the law arising as a result of Brexit and the recent legislative changes on corporal punishment across the different UK jurisdictions.
Chapter
10. The Legal Position of Children
N V Lowe, G Douglas, E Hitchings, and R Taylor
This chapter charts the changing legal position of children. It starts by considering the former importance of the status of legitimacy and its near complete abolition. It then discusses the changing nature of the parent–child relationship and the development of the law from paternal authority to shared parental responsibility. Finally the chapter considers the developing notion of children’s autonomy and independent rights which has both limited the scope of legitimate parental authority and emphasised that the interests of children are a matter of public, as well as private, concern. This latter point is well illustrated by the growing importance of the role of the Children’s Commissioner.
Chapter
11. Court orders for young offenders
This chapter first considers the range of civil orders available to the courts in responding to anti-social or criminal behavior by children and young people. It therefore focusses on the criminal behaviour orders and injunctions as well as the community remedy. It then looks at the options available to the sentencing court in relation to criminal offending and so refers in particular to the referral order and the Youth Offender Panel, the youth rehabilitation order and the detention and training order. We note the welcome fall in the number of children in prison but note the increase in the average custodial sentence length. The chapter also discusses selected aspects of conditions in secure accommodation and reviews the role and achievements of using rights in responding to problematic issues.
Chapter
10. The International Protection Of Substantive Rights (II)
Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade and Damián A. González-Salzberg
This chapter continues the discussion of the international protection of substantive rights commenced in Chapter 9. It focuses on rights held by individuals as members of specific social collectives and well as on a fundamental right that belongs to a collective or people rather than to their members individually. The chapter starts with a discussion of the prohibition of discrimination, which is both a fundamental right and a general guarantee applicable to respecting and protecting all rights. Then, it delves into the discussion of rights held by individuals belonging to two social groups, covering the topics of women’s and children’s rights. The chapter concludes by exploring the right to self-determination of peoples, a paradigmatic example of a right whose right-holder is a collective of individuals, as well as the rights of indigenous peoples.
Chapter
8. Fundamental Principles in the Law Relating to Children
All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter, which focuses on alternative approaches to child-related disputes and their influence on English law, first considers the welfare principle and its central role in child law today. It addresses the problems and limitations of the principle, and then looks at alternatives to a welfare-orientated approach. The chapter examines children’s rights as an alternative or supplement to a welfare-orientated approach. It explores the different theoretical perspectives on the concept of children’s rights; the extent to which this approach has gained acceptance within domestic family law; and the importance of the ‘non-intervention’ principle and the possible tension between a commitment to maximizing children’s welfare whilst supporting only a minimalist role for the state, including promoting family dispute resolution in the private realm.
Book
Stephen Gilmore and Lisa Glennon
Gilmore and Glennon’s Hayes and Williams’ Family Law, now in its seventh edition, provides critical engagement with key areas of family law, with detailed, yet accessible, expositions of case law, key legislation, and debates affecting adults and children. The volume includes ‘talking points’ and focused ‘discussion questions’ throughout each chapter which highlight areas of debate or controversy. A section entitled ‘New to this Edition’ provides a detailed account of developments since the last edition.
