Legal Updates

• Government under fire again from MPs and lords over human rights of children

The joint committee of human rights is a committee of both houses of parliament set up to consider matters relating to human rights in the UK.

The committee produced a report on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (“CRC”) (published 24 June 2003, HL Paper 117). This considered the concluding observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on the UK government’s compliance with the CRC published in October 2002. The joint committee’s findings provide a useful backdrop to recent case law and legislation concerning the welfare of children in need. The report covers such areas as children and the criminal justice system, health and welfare, education, and care and protection.

The report is an especially useful document to have as it contains the main articles of the CRC, the UN committees reports on the UK’s compliance and the UK’s report to that committee on the implementation of the CRC.

The CRC and domestic law

The CRC has been given fresh importance by the introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the recent case concerning the rights of mothers in prison to keep their babies with them. In this case Lord Woolf considered the position of the UN Convention and whether domestic courts need to have regard to it. He concluded that obligations under the UN convention are relevant because:

• The Human Rights Act 1998 says that courts in this country must have regard to the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights

• That court, when looking at the rights in the European Convention of Human Rights (“ECHR”), does consider the UN convention.

So where, for example, the courts in this country have to decide whether a child’s right to respect for a home or family life (article 8 of the ECHR), or the right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment (article 3 of the ECHR) has been breached, they can look at the UN convention to see if it gives any assistance.

The CRC and public spending

An analysis of how the UN Committee has engaged in this subject with the government gives a flavour of the report.

Article 27 of the UNCRC enjoins state parties, in implementing “the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development” to provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing” in cases of need.

Various other articles state parties are enjoined to act against other forms of deprivation – to provide health, education, information, protection from unacceptable and hazardous work and opportunities for recreation: see articles 6, 13, 17, 24, 28, 31 and 32.

The UN committee recommended that public spending analysis should identify separately all spending on children. The joint committee on human rights recommended that this should be done to allow tracking of trends in expenditure on children, which would allow an assessment of the impact of the CRC as a whole.

In relation to the various acts of parliament which combat child poverty (such as social security legislation, housing law, the Children Act 1989, the National Assistance Act 1948 and the Human Rights Act 1998) the joint committee had the following to say:

The significance of the UN committee’s comments on child poverty can be fully understood only in the light of the way in which the law is implemented, including how relevant financial and administrative policies and practices affect the practical benefit the law can confer on children who seek its protection”.

The UN committee recommended that the UK undertake “all the necessary measures to the maximum extent of available resources to accelerate the elimination of child poverty”. The UN committee was concerned that insufficient steps were being taken to sure this was fulfilled. The government’s response accepted “that the levels of child poverty in the UK are unacceptable”, and that it intended to “reverse the legacy we found”. 

In relation to disabled children the government said:

From 2001-2 – 2003-4 an additional £60 million has been earmarked for services for disabled children and their families to target; increased provision of family support services, including short-term breaks; better integration of disabled children into mainstream leisure and out of school services; and better information for families and increased availability of key workers and other measures to improve co-ordination.

Stephen Cragg

Doughty Street Chambers