United Nations on children’s access to justice and remedies
30 August 2024
On 23 August 2024, the Law Council made a submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which is in the process of drafting a General Comment on children’s access to justice and remedies. The submission set out challenges for youth justice in Australia in both the criminal and civil spheres. These include the low minimum age of criminal responsibility; children’s unmet need for representation in many matters; oversight of youth and immigration detention centres and more. However, the submission also discussed ‘enabling factors and strategies’ that have been adopted in Australia that could serve as examples internationally. Relevantly, Australia has Children’s Commissioners in every jurisdiction who do valuable work on behalf of children across the country; it also has tailored court processes for vulnerable young witnesses and specific representatives such as Independent Children’s Lawyers in family law matters. We hope that this overview will be useful to the Committee on the Rights of the Child as it considers its upcoming General Comment 27.
Last Updated on 30/08/2024