The Child Protection Board, which has an important legal advisory position with family courts, does not read in the The Hague region prior to sessions. The Court of The Hague and the Child Protection Board acknowledge this after asking from NRC. Although the Council comes to the hearing unprepared and has no knowledge of the file, the Council as an official expert during court cases on, for example, parental authority and access arrangements advises the court on what is in the child’s interest.
Family lawyers are very angry about years of practice. “This is very serious for parents and children from a legal protection,” says lawyer Jolande ter Avest. “The council has an independent role at the session and a heavy voice. And then it does not know your case well enough.”
How can the council make the distinction between one or the other if they have not read the file?
“The council now gives advice based on what is being told at the session, but that is only a small part of what is stated in the file. This is not in the best interests of the child,” says lawyer and mediator Nathalie Groenewoud. Earlier this month she ran on LinkedIn The discussion about the working method, by posting a message how it is possible that the Child Protection Board in The Hague, as the only one in the Netherlands, is not studying the procedural documents. She then received a lot of support from other lawyers and even an employee of the council who pointed to “legal inequality through this different working method” – a response that, after NRC approached the council with questions, was removed.
Ariane Hendriks, a family law teacher at Tilburg University, is very bad at the state of affairs in The Hague. She points out that the court is toughly lifting to the advice of the council. “As a lawyer of Goeden Huize you have to come and have the happiness to find a critical judge if you want to convince the court to go against the advice of the council,” says Hendriks, who worked as a family lawyer for almost seventeen years.
Family law sessions are not public. Hendriks explains that usually thirty to forty minutes before a session is pulled out, while it is often based on a large file with procedural documents. “So it is not the case that if the council does not read the documents, that content is all discussed during the session. In fact, if you are going to repeat the documents as a lawyer, you will be cut off by the court.”
After the requesting and defendant have been speaking, the judge asks the representative of the council what that of the case thinks. “If the Council has not read the procedural documents, it can only advise on the session on the basis of the impression,” says Hendriks. “That can give a distorted picture. I have had a lot of lawsuits and can tell you that the perpetrator of domestic violence is generally a lot more charming than the victim.”
Unprepared
According to the Child Protection Board and the court, the current working method stems from the introduction of the so -called uniform aid offer in 2019 in The Hague. This is a collaboration between courts and municipalities with the aim of offering appropriate help to parents and children in conflicting divorces and access arrangements, and to prevent further escalation and lingering lawsuits.
A spokesperson for the court states that the council has indicated that it is ‘impossible’ and also ‘not necessary’ to read the file in all those cases. “The council comes to those sessions uninformed.” The council cannot indicate how many sessions that are annually, because that would not be removed from the systems. This also applies to the answer to the question of how the number of sessions in The Hague relates to elsewhere in the Netherlands, where the council workers are preparing. The court of The Hague speaks of hundreds of sessions.
The ‘uniform aid offer’ has been introduced nationally, but has locally differences due to the decentralization of youth care. Municipalities in the district of The Hague, the Court and Child Protection Board, have jointly decided that the Council will test the reference to such a care trajectory during a hearing.
The Council only shares general pedagogical insights and views with the judge whether a care process could be suitable for parents and/or children
The court of The Hague points to the difference between ‘advising’ and ‘testing’. The council also brings a similar distinction and speaks of a ‘consultrol’ and ‘advisory role’. In lawsuits in the context of the uniform aid offering, only ‘tests’ and the ‘Consultrol’ would be the case, and that is unprepared according to the Council and the Court. “The Council only shares general pedagogical insights and views with the judge whether an aid process could be suitable for the parents and/or children,” said the Hague court.
Fallacy
Lawyer Ter Avest is highly strange. As an experienced family lawyer, she is active throughout the Netherlands. At other courts, she does find a well -prepared employee of the Child Protection Board in similar cases.
Hendriks from Tilburg University speaks of a fallacy of the council and court. To determine whether a case is suitable for a care process, knowledge of the file is also required. “In the event of a conflict separation, a uniform auxiliary offering process can be suitable. But you also have a large group of cases where there is no conflict separation, but of continued domestic violence after the relationship break, stalking, intimate terror: the entire catalog misery. How could the council have read the case between one case?”
When requested, the Council says that if such heavy cases initially will not come up with the court, they will later return to the court and council because it will turn out that the aid process used is unsuitable.
Read also
The Child Protection Board abolished managers and formed self -managing teams. “Your head goes off”