Expertise

The participation of the child is likewise the focus of the latest edition of “undKinder” magazine from the Marie Meierhofer Institute for the Child (MMI). Our guest article takes a detailed and comprehensive look at the topic from a legal perspective. We tackle the most important points of the article “Schutz des Kindes durch Partizipation” (Protecting children through participation) and present them to you over the course of three blog articles. In this third and final article, we would like to conclude with a discussion of the importance of child-friendly hearings.

«Kinder sind ganze Menschen» – Children are complete people – is the title of the latest edition of “undKinder” magazine from the Marie Meierhofer Institute for the Child (MMI). The edition is devoted to the topic of participation and we have contributed a guest article titled “Protecting children through participation”. In our previous blog post we discussed participation as a concept and process. This time, we would like to focus on the best interest of the child.

Every year in Switzerland, over 100,000 children and young people come into contact with the legal system. All of them have the right to participation. Far too often, however, this right is disregarded and children and young people are not heard when decisions that affect them are being made. As the independent national Ombuds Office Children’s Rights Switzerland, our central task is to ensure that all professionals involved have the same understanding of participation and are working together to safeguard its implementation.

Also in Switzerland, children’s rights are based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, ratification is not enough for these rights to be guaranteed. To ensure that the justice system always treats children in a child-friendly manner, the Council of Europe has adopted specific guidelines for child-friendly justice.