A press release dated 9 March 2017 from the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Ministry of Justice proposed to shut down the county board «courts» (fylkesnemnda) where currently child welfare cases are being heard, and move the child welfare hearings to normal courts, where other cases are heard, such as criminal and civil cases and so on.
The current county board is dependent on the child welfare system and its behaviour at times often exhibits a very undemocratic process that totally overlooks a child’s need, focusing instead on agreeing with everything that child welfare employees and their loyal paid followers, including psychologists and lawyers tell them to do.
At this time in 2017, a number of professionals connected to the child welfare system were delighted with this potential step forward that would mean that children and their families would get real justice if this change took place. This proposed move of child welfare cases to normal courts would have given children and families far more legal certainty, as the normal court would be part of the legal system, and it would be independent as well.
According to Norwegian lawyer Olav Sylte, the Norwegian government has changed its mind at record speed, and has now decided that the administrative county board shall nevertheless continue as an administrative body which shall «judge» as the first instance in child welfare cases.
The following is an excerpt from Stolen Childhood:
«Examiners believe in the administrative county board, where the yawns of weary judges who think it’s in the child’s best interests are barely concealed behind their hands. You are doomed to lose in approximately ninety-six per cent of cases, according to government statistics. It is David versus Goliath, and David will almost certainly not win this time round.»
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An administrative body — like Fylkesnemnda — is not an independent and impartial tribunal for the purposes of ECHR Article 6!
Its presence actually is a tool to make domestic legal remedies ineffective (and violates Article 13 of ECHR) as it takes far too long time to get to the court — unless an emergency legal remedy option is introduced for suspending care takeover.