ABSTRACT
There are, however, one or two areas where consideration is needed of the theory behind the jurisprudence that has been developing for the past quarter-century, because clearly there is a tension between observance of the Bromley list 1 of parental duties engaged by the status of PR and the concept of the growing autonomy of the contemporary child which had quite different drivers. Broadly, although children’s rights have a longer history, in modern times the concept was increasingly articulated by a combination of the Gillick case in 1986, 2 the Children Act in 1989 (which is, to some extent, the catalyst through which English law acknowledges the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child , which also dates from 1989) and the academic commentary. The latter proliferated in the 1990s as the intellectual concept of children’s autonomy met the practical task of how best to protect children from their right to self-determination, i.e. to make their own mistakes – but only up to a point; and that point was not to the extent that the court was prepared to allow them to die as a result of a mistaken medical decision. This is another example of the growing interference of the State in the family’s autonomy, as the court also sometimes interferes in the parents’ agreed stance by deciding that the parents’ choice is wrong. The theory behind this does not sit very well behind the Family Justice Review (FJR) principle that parents should be encouraged to make their own agreements about their children’s post-parental separation life, and should be given every support to achieve this, if when the parents make such an agreement the court is then going to reverse it.
