In A & S v. Lancashire County Council, a UK High Court found that failures in the care system for children amounted to a breach of two boys' rights. The court found that there was a breach of Article 3 (protection from inhuman and degrading treatment), Article 6 (fair trial rights) and Article 8 (family and private life rights) of the ECHR.
The applicants in the case were two brothers, A and S, who had suffered immensely since being placed in care 14 years ago. The boys were abandoned by their mother at the ages of 3 and 6 months old and the multiple failures of the care system resulted in them being passed from home to home over the subsequent years. After abandonment by their mother, they were placed with their aunt who unfortunately was unable to cope with the children. A "freeing order"was therefore obtained, which severed the boys’ ties with their birth family. Freeing orders were only intended for use where there was a real prospect that an adoptive family would be found within 12 months, but in the case of A & S no such family was found. Rather than revoke the freeing order and seek renewed contact with the boys’ family, the boys were moved from foster home to foster home over the next 14 years. The evidence showed that at least two sets of foster carers were abusive.
The boys then sought legal assistance and brought proceedings under the Human Rights Act against the local authority and the Independent Reporting Officer whose role it was to review their case regularly. Judge Jackson considered the huge amount of documentary evidence provided of the failure on the part of the care system towards the boys and the subsequent effects of this failure on the boys' developments. The local authority agreed to declarations that they had acted incompatibly with the ECHR. In finding a violation of the above rights (Articles 3, 6 and 8), the court identified two particular problems in the care system - that the legal status of children in care has welfare consequences, and the failures in the Independent Reporting Officer system. The IRO respondent in the boys’ case had submitted a document apologising to the boys and explaining the overwhelming case-load and inadequate supervision which had caused but did not justify the failures on his part.
Click here to read the case.
Click here to read a post on the UK Human Rights blog about the case.
In Ireland in recent months there has also been severe criticism of the Irish care system following the publication of the report of the Independent Child Death Review group. The report focuses on the deaths of 196 young people in contact with the State’s child-protection services between 2000 and 2010. The Taoiseach described the highly critical report as a “litany of shame”. The report found that most of the children in the review didn’t receive an adequate service and that more consistent intervention by authorities could have assisted the young people’s chances of overcoming their problems.
Access the report and an Irish Times article on the report here.