This paper examines the discretionary reasoning of the judiciary in three jurisdictions, England, Germany and Norway, in cases deciding whether a newborn child is safe with her parents or intervention is necessary. Our analysis focuses on one specific dimension of decision makers' exercise of discretion, namely, if and how the strengths and weaknesses of the mother are considered. The data material consists of all decisions concerning care orders of newborns from one large city in Germany from 2015 to 2017 (n = 27) and 2016 in Norway (n = 76) and all publicly available newborn removal decisions in England for 2015–2017 (n = 14). The findings reveal a high number of risk factors in the cases and less focus on risk‐reducing factors. The situation of the newborn is considered to be harmful, as most cases result in a care order. Judicial discretion differs by how much information, and what types of factors, are included in the justification for the decision. A learning point for decision makers and policymakers would be to actively undertake a balancing act between risk‐increasing and risk‐reducing factors.

中文翻译：

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评估父母的能力：司法决策者对新生儿移居案件中母亲的父母能力的书面评估的跨国分析

本文在确定新生婴儿是否可以与父母安全或需要干预的情况下，研究了英格兰，德国和挪威三个司法管辖区司法机构的自由裁量推理。我们的分析集中于决策者行使酌处权的一个特定维度，即是否以及如何考虑母亲的优缺点。数据材料包括2015年至2017年（n = 27）和2016年挪威（n = 76）来自德国一个大城市的新生儿护理顺序的所有决定，以及英国2015-2017年所有公开可获得的新生儿去除决定（ñ= 14）。调查结果表明，这些案例中存在大量的风险因素，而对降低风险的因素的关注则较少。新生儿的状况被认为是有害的，因为大多数情况下会导致照料顺序。司法裁量因决定的理由中包含多少信息和哪些类型的因素而异。决策者和政策制定者的学习点将是在增加风险的因素和减少风险的因素之间积极采取平衡行动。