Stalford, H. and Hollingsworth, K. (2020) “This case is about you and your future”: towards judgments for children. The Modern Law Review, 83 (5). pp. 1030-1058. ISSN: 0026-7961
Abstract
A handful of ‘child-friendly’ judgments have emerged in the UK in recent years, attempting to adopt a child-centred approach to the decision-making stage of the legal process. Most notable is Sir Peter Jackson's judgment in Re A: Letter to a Young Person which, in taking the form of a letter to the child, has been applauded as a model of how to achieve ‘child friendly justice’. This article examines how and why the form and presentation of judicial decisions is an important aspect of children's access to justice, considering not just the potential but the duty of judges to enhance children's status and capacities as legal citizens through judgment writing. We identify four potential functions of judgments written for children (communicative, developmental, instructive and legally transformative), and call for a radical reappraisal of the way in which judgments are constructed and conveyed with a view to promoting children's access to justice.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. The Modern Law Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Modern Law Review Limited. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Law and Legal Studies; Public Law; Pediatric; Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of Law |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Jul 2025 15:14 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jul 2025 15:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/1468-2230.12536 |
Related URLs: | |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:229680 |