Protection of the human rights of children in conflict with the law should be at the heart of the individual assessment process required by EU law, the International Commission of Jurists and Forum for Human Rights said today.
The two organisations have published today Recommendations on the individual assessment of children in conflict with the law. The recommendations have been developed for Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but are applicable to other EU national systems.
The Recommendations highlight that the individual assessment, as a human right of the child, should ensure the real and effective participation of the child on the individual assessment elaboration.
The Recommendations look at the purpose of the individual assessment to primarily make sure that the proceedings are child-friendly and tailored to the individual needs of each child, and set out the main principles for practitioners related to work with information and information sharing, ensuring children have their procedural rights respected, such as having access to the assessment and being able to comment on it, having access to legal assistance and legal aid, access to information and to effective remedy.
Download the Recommendations here:
The Recommendations are a result of a two-year long project PRACTICE (Procedural Rights for All Children in justice), funded by the European Union.
The project (2020-2021) focused on the right of the child in conflict with the law to individual assessment, a right recently made part of EU law in Article 7 of the Directive 2016/800 on procedural safeguards for children who are suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings. During the project, national trainings in Czechia and Slovakia for judges, lawyers, probation officers, social workers and authorities took place.
The organisations also developed a child-friendly version of the Recommendations accompanied by a video and a poster, to raise awareness among children of their rights.
Download the child-friendly version here:
- Based on the Czech legal system: in Czech, in English
- Based on the Slovak legal system: in Slovak
Watch the video for children here.
Download the poster based on the video here (in Czech).
During the initial stage of the project, a baseline study has been developed, mapping the national legal systems in Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and England and Wales.
Download the baseline study here.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and Forum for Human Rights (Forum) launch the Recommendations during an online event today. The presentation of project outputs will be followed by an expert roundtable discussion.
Download the agenda of the final event here.