ABSTRACT

Despite the widespread ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children continue to struggle to have their participation rights recognised and supported. This is evident within family law, where despite sometimes progressive and strong legislation, children’s views are often not heard, nor given due weight, when parent-child contact is contested within the courts. This paper explores barriers to children’s participation rights being realised. It uses Scotland as the example, due to its strong legal safeguards and mechanisms that aim to support participation rights. The paper draws on recent empirical research with legal professionals, combined with an analysis of reported case law and relevant literature, to explore the barriers ‘on the ground’ for children’s participation rights. Through our analysis, we offer new ways to conceptualise the notion of influence in children’s participation rights in family actions. We offer the conceptual devices of ‘the influenced child’ and ‘the influential child’ to elucidate how children’s participation rights are restricted.

摘要

尽管普遍批准了《联合国儿童权利公约》，但儿童仍在努力争取承认和支持其参与权。这在家庭法中是显而易见的，尽管有时立法会循序渐进和有力，但是当法院对亲子接触提出异议时，通常不会听到儿童的意见，也没有给予应有的重视。本文探讨了实现儿童参与权的障碍。它以苏格兰为例，因为其强有力的法律保障措施和旨在支持参与权的机制。本文借鉴了法律专业人士最近的实证研究，并结合对所报告的判例法和相关文献的分析，探索了“实地”儿童参与权的障碍。通过我们的分析，我们提供了新的方法来概念化影响儿童参与家庭行为的权利的概念。我们提供“有影响力的孩子”和“有影响力的孩子”的概念性工具，以阐明如何限制儿童的参与权。