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Is it ‘fair'? Representation of children, young people and parents in an adversarial court system
Author(s) -
Thomson Lorraine,
McArthur Morag,
Camilleri Peter
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
child and family social work
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1365-2206
pISSN - 1356-7500
DOI - 10.1111/cfs.12226
Subject(s) - adversarial system , representation (politics) , jurisdiction , quality (philosophy) , psychology , public relations , law , political science , philosophy , epistemology , politics
Children's C ourts in A ustralia are important parts of the systems which protect children and deal with young people who offend. They make decisions about the best interests of these vulnerable children and young people and require that children are represented in court. The paper reports on views of 46 stakeholders about quality of and access to representation in the care jurisdiction of the C hildrens C ourt in A ustralian C apital T erritory. Most stakeholders were adamant that for all parties to receive as fair a hearing as possible, they needed representation. There were a range of views about the quality of representation and about what quality representation looks like in an adversarial system of decision‐making.