Care of the child in court

Justyne Caruana, Labour spokesman on the family and equality, calls for a comprehensive Children Act and for children to be given better access to the courts to have their voice heard. (October 15).

I would like to assure Dr Caruana that under the present Administration she is wasting her time and energy in advocating a comprehensive Children Act. The introduction of a child's guardian to act as the voice of the child is a taboo subject.

Where Sonja Camilleri, former Commissioner for Children, in her own determined and indefatigable way, and Ruth Farrugia, an advocate and senior lecturer at the University of Malta, failed to persuade the former Administration to adopt these indispensable tools for children's rights, the incumbent Commissioner for Children, for various reasons, will undoubtedly not succeed.

In her capacity as Labour spokesman on the family and equality, Dr Caruana would be better advised to table parliamentary questions with surgical precision if she wants to extract the truth behind the government's stance on these two issues.

I am a staunch advocate of a comprehensive Children Act and worked under the Children Act in the United Kingdom.

A Children Act will cover virtually all the law relating to the care and upbringing of children and the social services to be provided for them. It will revolutionise the law to be applied by the court hearing all kinds of children, whether in separation or care proceedings.

This means it will cover, among other things, care proceedings, parental responsibility and guardianship, the court's powers in family proceedings, an extended menu of orders, financial provision for children, protection of abuse under all its forms, contact, disability, medical treatment of children, education, adoption and fostering, child-minding and day care for children.

A glaring omission in Dr Caruana's statement is the role of the child's guardian. It is imperative that the child is jointly represented by his/her lawyer and a child's guardian. Dame Butler-Sloss, the United Kingdom's distinguished senior female judge, described a child's guardian at the time of implementation of the Children Act 1989 as "the lynchpin to successful implementation of the Act".

The child's guardian and the child's lawyer work jointly to present the case to the court. The lawyer is responsible for presenting the child's case in court including calling witnesses for the child. The child's guardian tells the lawyer what he/she believes should happen with the child and what information should be put before the court. A panel of children's guardians should be administered by the Commissioner for Children in order to retain its independence.