Care proceedings - human rights claims - not necessary to transfer proceedings to higher court because of alleged breaches of convention rights

In re V (A Child) (Care Proceedings: Human Rights Claims): CA (Lords Justice Tuckey and Wall): 4 February 2004

The local authority instituted care proceedings under part IV of the Children Act 1989 in respect of V shortly after her birth, and an interim care order was made.

On the first day of the final hearing in the county court, the judge adjourned the proceedings and transferred to the High Court an application by the father for, among other things, a declaration that the local authority had breached the rights of V and her parents to family life under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to fund therapeutic treatment for the parents, which would enable the family to be reunified.

The local authority appealed.

Gemma Taylor (instructed by the Solicitor, West Sussex County Council, Chichester) for the local authority; Claire Jakens, who did not appear below, (instructed by DJ Quelch, Horsham) for the mother; Mary Lazarus (instructed by Stevens Drake, Crawley) for the father; Peter Bonner, solicitor-advocate (of Peter Bonner & Co) for the guardian.

Held, allowing the appeal, that the provisions of the 1989 Act generally, and part IV in particular, complied with the requirements of the Human Rights Act 1998; that articles 6 and 8 of the convention were to some extent engaged in every application under part IV of the 1989 Act; that every court hearing part IV proceedings had to give effect to the provisions of the 1989 Act in a way that was compatible with convention rights; that any allegation that a local authority had acted incompatibly with a convention right should be dealt with in the care proceedings by the court hearing those proceedings under section 7(1)(b) of the 1998 Act and it was neither necessary nor desirable to transfer the proceedings to a superior level of court merely because a breach of convention rights was alleged; that applications for proceedings to be transferred to the High Court for discrete issues under the 1998 Act or the convention to be determined by a High Court judge were to be strongly discouraged and could amount to an abuse of process; and that the courts had no power, whether within part IV proceedings or under the 1998 Act or otherwise, to compel a local authority to fund therapeutic treatment for the parents of the child concerned, but that the absence of that power did not render the 1989 Act non-compliant with the1998 Act (WLR).