Youth protection and family law: parallels with the benefits affair

• Posted on: January 25, 2021
• Last updated: February 16, 2021

In recent weeks, the report of the Parliamentary Interrogation Committee on Childcare Allowance, with the exceptionally weighty title “Unprecedented Injustice”, has caused a stir. The report shows that the Dutch government has caused disproportionate harm to a number of its citizens and that it has failed to protect these citizens from the government and its executive agencies.
• By Nathalie van Waterschoot and Corine de Ruiter
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Rule of law principles, such as those of good faith, proportionality and proportionality, have been disregarded to a greater or lesser extent by the three state powers. As a result, insufficient justice has been done to individual situations of citizens. Citizens who opposed the recovery of surcharges received through lawsuits, contacts with the National Ombudsman and MPs found limited and ultimately far too late response.

Encouraging
It is encouraging that attention is now being paid to these serious abuses surrounding childcare benefits and that they are being thoroughly investigated. Hopefully, it will give affected citizens some (h) recognition for the and sometimes irreparable suffering caused them and will eventually restore social trust in our rule of law. Unfortunately, there are also other areas where the rule of law is constantly failing: youth protection and family law.

Wrongly imposed
The then Children's Ombudsman Marc Dullaert already published the report “Is the care well-founded? Analysis of the fact-finding study about far-reaching youth care decisions, which showed that many parents and children suffer from the decisions that youth care workers, judges and behavioral scientists make about them. The summary conclusion was pointless: “The Children's Ombudsman notes that the work processes of the Youth Welfare Office, Child Abuse Advisory and Hotline and the Child Protection Board currently do not include sufficient quality guarantees to ensure that the number of errors is kept to an absolute minimum. As a result, there is a risk that errors further down the youth care chain will work. It is then possible that decisions are made based on incomplete, insufficiently substantiated information. In the extreme case, a child protection measure could be improperly imposed, terminated or extended, or an access arrangement with a parent that is more limited than necessary will be decided.”

kidnapping
It is now more than seven years later and nothing has changed. There are still citizens who, without proper fact-finding, are accused of psychological and/or physical abuse of their children, based on suspicions and images, and children are subsequently removed from home by youth counselors and/or family judges. Or vice versa: Children and/or parents who are actually victims of psychological and/or physical violence are not taken seriously and are forced into contact with the perpetrator by the government without proper fact-finding. Sometimes things go wrong at the start of the youth care chain, when false reports to the police such as “domestic quarrel” or “kidnapping” are stored in the digital system under the heading “incidents” without investigating whether these reports are true. Veilig Thuis and other agencies in the youth care chain, sometimes years later, take such “incidents” into their reports as facts, on the basis of which the family court makes decisions on custody and access issues. The suffering of parents and children involved in such cases is immense and often irreparable.

Sit on the hands
In the benefits affair, the Administrative Justice Department of the Council of State in Trouw (9 January 2021) indicated that it would investigate its statements in recent years to see whether, in addition to the benefits affair, there may be more areas where citizens have been disproportionately affected by strict legislation and the absence of rule of law. The chairman of the Department of Administrative Justice also believes it is important to meet the parents and their lawyers first: “Just sit on your hands and listen. That is essential”. The outgoing cabinet and the members of the House of Representatives have now also responded substantively and indicated, among other things, that reflection on their own actions and that of the implementing agencies is necessary. We think these reactions are necessary.

Citizens' suffering
Such responses would also suit the relevant authorities in the youth protection and family law chain. Too often, citizens' problems and suffering are wrongly put back to citizens themselves. Given the sometimes disproportionate and unconstitutional actions of government agencies, a thorough investigation into their own failure and an open listening attitude of all involved authorities, such as the Police, Safe Home, youth care workers, Child Protection Council, youth and family justice, ministers involved and the legislator, is also appropriate. And here, too, it is important that authorities first listen to the stories about the abuses in youth protection and family law and that they take them seriously, so that affected citizens receive some (h) recognition for the suffering caused them, prevent more suffering and restore social trust in our rule of law. Listen and sit on your hands.

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