Ruby Harrold-Claesson's
lecture at the Families in Care, Conference for the Millennium,
Ladies and Gentlemen!
First of all, I would
like to thank Pat Hanley and Joan Mills for inviting me as guest speaker at the
Families in Care, Conference for the Millennium here in
I also have a Swedish
law degree and I am the president of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights. We
have a site on the Internet where we publish in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish,
English, French, Finnish and German. I am the webmaster. If you visit the NCHR's English page on the
Internet you will find an advertisement for this Conference. The
Conference is also advertised under "Anslagstavlan", which means
"Notice Board" on the Nordic page.
The Nordic Committee
for Human Rights was founded in November 1996 by Nordic professionals from
The work that we do
in the Nordic Committee for Human Rights focuses therefore on Article 8 of the European Convention, Article 16 of
the UN Convention on the Rights of the child and Article 12 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. These three International documents guarantee each
individual's the right private and family life. I would like to point out that
Article 8 of the European Convention does not only guarantee the parents'
rights to private and family life but also the child's rights to private and
family life. The NCHR also works with Article 6 of the European Convention -
the right to a fair trial before an impartial tribunal. The first speaker this
morning, Sally Bradley, QC, gave us an eloquent lecture about both Article 8
and Article 6 of the European Convention. You may wonder why we have to work
with Article 6. The answer is that it is because parents in child-care cases do
not get a fair trial in the Swedish administrative courts. The system
invariably prevails over the individual.
One of the founders
of the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, and also a member of the board, Siv
Westerberg, has won nine cases against
The Olsson case is
typical for how the social authorities treated people during the time when
forced sterilisations were allowed in
I can quote from the
dissenting opinion of the judges Pettiti, Russo and Matscher in the
There have been
several other verdicts against
To start with, let me
tell you a little about the Swedish system for child protection. The laws
governing the taking of children into public care are
1 - the law of the
social services and
2 - the law with
special provisions for the care of young people, known as LVU.
The LVU-law states
that "children can be removed from their parents because of negligence,
ill-treatment, sexual abuse or other conditions in the family". The words
"other conditions in the family" usually creates a big problem,
because anything can be drawn in under that heading. For example, if a 40 year
old mother of four children should disagree with the 26 year old social worker
- who has just graduated from the social college and only has text-book
knowledge about children, because she has no children of her own - about how to
take care of her children, that could fall under "other conditions in the
family". Because, if the mother should disagree with the social worker
then that means that she does not know what is "best for her child".
That is one of the stipulations that the NCHR is working to have removed from
the LVU-law.
We also have the
Parent and Guardianship Code, Chapter 6 Section 1, which forbids parents from
smacking their children. Smacking a persistently disobedient child is called
"child abuse" in
I shall give a brief
description of how the cases where social workers decide to take children into
care work. LVU-cases are very intrusive in the family's integrity and their
private life. Before proceeding further, I would like to remind you that the
right to private and family life is guaranteed by Article 8 of the European
Convention on Human Rights.
LVU-cases are very
intrusive in the family's integrity and their private life and the social
worker has very strong powers so, these cases run automatically. The social
worker "recommends" what she thinks should be done. The social
worker's "recommendation" is then endorsed by her supervisor. Then
the endorsed "recommendation" is submitted to the social council,
i.e. the lay-politicians whose duty it is to give legitimacy to the social
worker's work through their decision-making powers. They are usually only
briefed on the case. They are not shown any documents to support the social
worker's allegations that the parents are unsuitable and that public care would
be in the best interest of the child/children. The members of the social councils
very seldom ask any questions or to see any documents. The politicians say that
they "have full confidence and trust in the social workers". So, the
social council, relying on their they "full confidence and trust in the
social workers" decides in accordance with the social worker's
recommendation to take the child or children into care. The do not question the
impartiality or the fairness or the competence of the social worker since one
expects civil servants to follow the Constitution and the law governing their
work.
LVU-cases are decided in the County Administrative Courts. At the
outset, the parents in question and the child/children are supplied with legal
representatives. The law prescribes that the parent/parents and child/children
should have separate lawyers. They are deemed to have opposing interests. The
parents are sometimes allowed the lawyer of their own choosing, but the child
has to accept the unsolicited legal representative. In the majority of
LVU-cases the child's lawyer pleads in accordance with the recommendations of
the social workers. The parents have no say as to the choice of lawyer for
their children.
The parents can - and
most often do - appeal against the social council's decision to the
The process that the
Swedish parents have to go through is quite similar to that which Noreen
O'Faolian described in her presentation earlier today. Often the parents'
lawyer and the parents receive the documentation shortly before the meeting in
the social council, but in some cases they receive it a week or two earlier.
The social workers usually produce very thick reports and we as lawyers are
supposed to go through the reports, meet and discuss the case with our clients,
talk to their witnesses, prepare the case and represent our clients in the court
proceedings. That is very time-consuming. However, it often occurs that the
judges decide in their verdicts that "a case of this type should not take
more than ten to fifteen hours", so they set the fees to match ten or
twelve hours of work. I have had several such verdicts. Of course, a court
decision limiting the attorney's fees is made to discourage lawyers from taking
these cases. Since these cases are cases that have direct impact upon people's
lives, they invariably take a lot of time, i.e. if one is to do a good job for
the client, and if the parents are to get a fair trial in court. All the
scenarios I have described are direct violations of the parents' and the
children's Article 6 rights to a fair trial before an impartial and independent
tribunal.
The NCHR also works with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees the child the right to family life. The authorities are now claiming that a child's rights to private and family life also include the foster family - which is totally absurd.
It must be noted that
statistics and scientific studies show that children in foster care do not fare
well. I will therefore give you a little example from yesterday's (
Being president of
the NCHR, I receive information from the four Nordic countries. Only two weeks
ago I received information about a 16 year old Norwegian girl who had committed
suicide. The teenage girl had been in care from age two. The reason for this
was that her mother had developed a mental disorder. The father applied to the
social authorities for help in the form of day-care for the little girl,
because it was difficult for him to take care of his wife and his daughter and
also cope with his work. His applications were turned down. The mother
committed suicide and then the social workers took the little girl into public
care. The father fought a 14 year long battle with the social authorities to
get his daughter back. She ran away several times and she was found by the
police and returned to the foster home. Two weeks ago, she gave up the battle
and took her own life. So now the Norwegian social workers have two more lives
on their consciences - the mother's and the daughter's. But the social workers
never assume - nor have to assume - responsibility for consequences of their
work.
I find it therefore
satisfactory that the British government has now imposed the European
Convention on Human Rights on all the British authorities and at all levels.
Going back to the law
on the social services, this law stipulates voluntary measures to be taken with
the consent of the parents. The law with special provisions for the care of
young people also stipulates that care should be offered in agreement with the
parents or the youngster and his parents. The social workers rarely comply with
these requirements. Usually they take the child, then they make their
investigations. The social workers also accept anonymous reports, which is a
breach of Article 6 of the European Convention, which guarantees everyone the
right to a fair trial, to be able to cross examine witnesses for the
prosecution, in the same manner that the defendant is allowed to cross examine
witnesses that he /she has called.
Your organisation is called
"Families in Care".
Unfortunately, in
Let us study some
figures for a moment.