On children's rights to be heard in custody and support matters
2020 (English)In: International survey of family law: 2020 edition / [ed] Margaret Brinig, Cambridge: Intersentia , 2020, p. 303-336Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
The identification and protection of children's interests and rights, even when they may conflict with those of their parents, has long been one aim of family law. Many progressive jurisdictions more broadly have been enacting a legal conception of children as independent legal subjects and rights-holders whose distinct interests and views in matters concerning them legally must be sought and prioritised to a greater extent than before. Partially as a result of this, Swedish and Californian family laws today both grant children conditional yet increasingly mandatory rights to participate in child custody conflicts between their parents. Children have the right to express their own views relevant to custody and visitation decisions, and to have those views given consideration and due weight by courts determining what is in their best interests.These rights are justified differently in the two jurisdictions examined here, largely reflecting the strong children's rights focus in Sweden and the strong parents' rights tradition in the US. Both systems nonetheless deem giving the child an opportunity to participate in family law matters as supportive of children's autonomy interests and necessary to the best interests determination process. Both thus protect children's participation rights in family law matters within child custody law. This chapter argues that Sweden and California fail to justify why similar rights do not exist within child support law and proposes remedying this by similarly extending children's participation rights into child support decisions.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cambridge: Intersentia , 2020. p. 303-336
Keywords [en]
right to participation, child support, child maintenance, United States law, California law, comparative family law, divorce proceedings, child rights, children's rights, Convention on the Rights of the Child, child-centered reform proposals, autonomy of children, Swedish family law, Swedish child law
Keywords [sv]
barnrätt, barnkonventionen, komparativ familjerätt, Kalifornien, skilsmässa, barns delaktighet
National Category
Other Legal Research Criminology
Research subject
Law; family law
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-485901Libris ID: 0c63r1q8x6sw76bISBN: 9781780689739 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-485901DiVA, id: diva2:1746192
2023-03-272023-03-272025-02-20Bibliographically approved