Juvenile Justice in UK Law

The impetus driving the United Kingdom to afford special statutory protection to those under 18 is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 ("UNCRC"). One of the key principles of the United Nations Declaration is that a child is to enjoy special protection. The preamble to the UNCRC speaks of entitlement to special care and assistance for a child. The UNCRC is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world.

When Parliament confers a discretionary power exercisable from time to time over a period, such power must be exercised on each occasion in the light of the circumstances at that time. In consequence, the person on whom the power is conferred cannot fetter the future exercise of his discretion by committing himself now as to the way in which he will exercise his power in the future.

However, as Professor Bevan envisages, the arrangements must also cover the risks of other types of contact. On the other hand, the arrangements mandated by section 31 plainly do not oblige the use of separate court buildings for young person defendants and witnesses or even entirely separate custody areas in the one court building.

In any case in which it is said that the reasonable time requirement (to which I will henceforward confine myself) has been or will be violated, the first step is to consider the period of time which has elapsed. Unless that period is one which, on its face and without more, gives grounds for real concern it is almost certainly unnecessary to go further, since the convention is directed not to departures from the ideal but to infringements of basic human rights.

It is in everyone's interests that children should be brought up to be decent law-abiding members of society. Both national and international law recognise that the criminal justice system is part of that process of bringing them up. The straightforward retributive response which is proper in the case of an adult offender is modified to meet the needs of the individual child. In national law, this is still reflected in section 44(1) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933:

The first was the child's decision to make the admissions he did. The second was the police officer's decision to administer a final warning rather than to prosecute him. It is good for children to learn to take responsibility for their actions: that is part of growing up to be responsible members of society. It is therefore good for children to 'own up' when they have done wrong. But it is absolutely vital that children's admissions, like adults', should be voluntary and reliable.

That is so, as the court explained in MM, because of the cumulative effect of the failure to draw any distinction on the basis of the nature of the offence, the disposal in the case, the time which has elapsed since the offence took place or the relevance of the data to the employment sought, and the absence of any mechanism for independent review of a decision to disclose data under section 113A.