Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2016

Reasons Tony Blair would be best staying out of British Politics

Iraq - enough said. Europe - he agreed to the widening of the EU without any attempt to limit economic migration from the poorer areas of the EU to the richer areas. This failure to think about the impact on the living conditions of skilled workers is the main cause of the Brexit vote. Forced Adoption - this was another of his failures. This may not have been fully recognised yet, but I expect it soon will be. Increasing spending at a rate faster than the economy was growing - Gordon Brown shares some of the blame for this, but Tony Blair was PM. This is why we have a more difficult problem today than Germany.

The Transparency Project and Adoption Targets

The Transparency Project have today produced a blog English councils confirm they set targets for the number of children to be adopted . That in itself is not news. Councils have prioritised adoption for many many years. What is new is that they recognise that when I say rather than being used to get children out of the care system, such ‘targets’ instead risk impacting on decision making at the stage where people are deciding if children should enter the care system i.e. when a decision is made to apply to the courts for a care order, and whether they should be adopted as opposed to some other care arrangement being chosen. I may be right. I would like to thank them for this. BASW warned that the effect of adoption targets would be to stop children being with their birth families. That warning was ignored by government. I have seen a number of cases where local authorities have delayed telling pregnant mothers of their intentions until after the date for a legal termination.

Teresa Kirk - a question for the Official Solicitor

There is no sense me sending this question to the Official Solicitor himself because his view is that he is not accountable to anyone other than the secret courts. The question is why did his representative on behalf of MM (the protected person) argue that Teresa Kirk should be kept in prison? If people remember the case of the Italian woman forced to have a C section when she visited the UK, there the Official Solicitor was acting and did not really defend her against the forced medical treatment - which various expert commentators at the time the judgment was published decided was unnecessary. There is also the case of Lee Gilliland who was evicted from his house without notice because the OS was appointed to represent him and did not tell him what had happened. Obviously the RP case where RP's case was conceded against her by the Official Solicitor on the papers without a hearing is another example of something where questions need to be answered. There is also the questio

17e Assises nationales des avocats d’enfants

This is a link to the agenda of the 17th national conference of French family lawyers. Here is part of the agenda: Vendredi 4 novembre 2016 9 h – Accueil 9 h 30 à 12 h 45 Jean-Marc ANDRE, bâtonnier Versailles Dominique ATTIAS, vice-bâtonnier Paris, présidente groupe de travail mineurs du CNB Geneviève AVENARD, défenseure des enfants auprès du défenseur des droits (sous réserve) Les maîtres du temps : Martine PERON et Josiane OLEOTTO-GUEY 30 ans d’application de la CIDE par les pays européens : Renate WINTER, vice-présidente du Comité des droits de l’enfant de l’ONU, ex-présidente du tribunal spécial pour la Sierra Leone et juge internationale au Kosovo Pause Angleterre : John HEMMING, ancien député, avec Florence BELLONE, correspondante RTBF au Royaume-Uni Suède : Ruby HARROLD-CLAESSON, avocate, présidente du Comité nordique des droits humains It is interesting how lawyers across Europe are unhappy with what is being done in England (and Wales). There is also a group of