Audit culture, accountability, and care: A phenomenological anthropology of child welfare

Front-line child welfare workers have long since preoccupied social work, sociological, and anthropological scholarship. This article employs phenomenological anthropology to attend to the embodied, experiential, and sensorial dimensions of front-line child welfare work. However, rather than renew calls to improve casework through increased institutional support, resilience-building, or retention efforts, I draw on caseworkers’ lived experiences to engage in a critical examination of the state’s role as parens patriae. What do caseworkers’ experiences “on the inside” reveal about the state’s capacity to care—both for its own frontline staff and the families in its purview? How do such experiences problematize our understanding of state accountability? Ultimately, how can they shift the scholarly fixation on developing “better” workers who can accommodate the ever-increasing demands of casework, to a larger critique of the state’s ability to serve as “the guardian and ultimate guarantor of child welfare” ( Boyden, 2005 : 195)? By locating caseworkers’ experiences within a larger context of “audit culture”—a climate of suspicion and surveillance that forces workers to constantly account for their productivity and performance—this article problematizes the state’s model of accountability and care ( Shore and Wright, 2000 ). I argue that, in light of the toxic social dynamics it creates, “audit culture” is incommensurable with the state’s role as parens patriae.

8. Charitable trusts

Without assuming prior legal knowledge, books in the Directions series introduce and guide readers through key points of law and legal debate. Questions, diagrams and exercises help readers to engage fully with each subject and check their understanding as they progress. Charitable trusts are not subject to the objections against private purpose trusts and enjoy certain privileges. Charities are not public institutions, but are nevertheless subject to judicial control, to the constitutional protection of the Crown as parens patriae (acting through the Attorney-General) and to the supervision of the Charity Commission. Moreover, they are not subject to the beneficiary principle and to the rule against inalienability of capital. This chapter deals with charitable trusts and discusses the distinction between legal and ‘everyday’ notions of charity. It also examines a charitable purpose, the advantages and disadvantages of charitable status, limits on the recognition of charitable trusts, what happens when a charitable purpose fails, whether the purpose of a charitable status is sufficiently beneficial to the public and the administration of charitable trusts. The chapter furthermore considers trust law and tax law privileges; the roles of charities, such as the prevention or relief of poverty and the advancement of education and religion; the public benefit requirement in educational trusts; recreational charities; the exclusivity requirement; the doctrine of cy près; and the disposal of surplus donations.

Legal Challenges to ICU Triage Decisions in the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Effectively Does the Law Regulate Bedside Rationing Decisions in Australia?

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised the difficult question of how to ration scarce intensive care resources when a health system is overwhelmed. Despite substantial ethical scholarship addressing these rationing decisions, little is known about the legal position in Australia. This article considers various legal challenges in response to a clinical scenario denying intensive care admission and a ventilator to a critically ill patient with COVID-19. The article considers key challenges in negligence, criminal law, administrative law, human rights law, and under the parens patriae jurisdiction and guardianship legislation, and how they would apply to this scenario. The article concludes that while there are many obstacles to a successful legal challenge, the law can provide important scrutiny and guidance in the design of decision-making processes and triage policies. To adequately protect individual interests, the article supports calls in the ethical literature to make these policies transparent for public scrutiny.

LANDASAN DOKTRINER HAK GUGAT PEMERINTAH TERHADAP KERUGIAN LINGKUNGAN HIDUP DI INDONESIA

ABSTRAKMeskipun hak gugat pemerintah atas kerusakan dan/atau pencemaran lingkungan hidup telah menjadi hal yang lazim dewasa ini, namun di Indonesia landasan doktriner gugatan pemerintah tersebut masih jarang diperbincangkan. Dengan menggunakan metode penelitian hukum doktrinal, penelitian ini dimaksudkan untuk menganalisis landasan teoretis hak gugat pemerintah. Berdasarkan kajian analisis atas peraturan dan putusan pengadilan yang berlaku, serta melakukan perbandingan dengan doktrin-doktrin yang berlaku dalam tradisi common law, tulisan ini menemukan bahwa gugatan pemerintah telah diajukan dalam beberapa dasar teoretis yang berbeda, antara lain: i) pemerintah sebagai wali lingkungan hidup; ii) kerugian negara; dan iii) konsekuensi tanggung jawab negara terkait lingkungan hidup. Selain itu, hak gugat pemerintah di Indonesia memiliki karakteristik yang serupa dengan yang ditemukan dalam doktrin public trust dan doktrin parens patriae. Kemiripan ini membawa pada konsekuensi hukum bahwa gugatan pemerintah atas pencemaran harus ditujukan semata-mata untuk memulihkan lingkungan hidup yang mengalami kerusakan/pencemaran.Kata kunci: doktrin; hak gugat pemerintah; kerugian lingkungan hidup. ABSTRACTDespite the government’s right to sue for environmental damage is a common practice in various countries nowadays, in Indonesia the theoretical basis of it is rare to be discussed. Using a doctrinal-research, this article analyzes the government’s right to sue with prevailing laws and court rulings and compares it to several common law doctrines. This article finds the government’s right to sue in Indonesia is based to three different theories, including: i) the government as a trustee of public natural resources; ii) state’s damage; and iii) the tail of state’s responsibility. In addition, the government’s right to sue also shares similar characteristics found in the public trust doctrine and parens patriae doctrine. The similarities bring about the legal basis that the government’s suit against pollution should primarily aim at restoration.Keywords: doctrine; environmental damage; government’s right to sue.

Murdering the Fatherland

Examining claims about “parricide” and “murdering the fatherland” in the wake of Caesar’s assassination, chapter 5 historicizes the discussions of earlier chapters by turning its attention to a single controversial image. The struggles of Cicero and his allies to paint Caesar and Antony as parricidae patriae (against opposing assertions about “murdering the parens patriae”) reveal the full panoply of body-political imagery being marshalled for a specific cause. Evocations of “parricide” are enjoined with images of disease, violence, and murder to strengthen their persuasiveness and drive the point home. Conflicting attempts to control the meaning of “parricide” mark the last traceable instance when imagery of Rome’s afflicted body was used to persuade in such a way, thus making the conflict a fitting end to the inquiry as a whole.

Pater Knows Best: Withdrawal of Medical Treatment from Infants in Scotland

The cases of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans placed the withdrawal of treatment from terminally ill infants at the forefront of medical law and ethics. In the medico-legal context, Scottish court procedures materially differ from those in England. This article considers these differences in light of the possibility that a similar case might soon be called before the Scottish courts. The Court of Session would then be required to consider whether to utilise its parens patriae jurisdiction to consent to the withdrawal of treatment as if it were the parent of the infant. The operation of this jurisdiction is such that the outcome of any Scottish case cannot be said to be certain, as the Scottish courts are bound to pay more heed to parental autonomy than their English counterparts do.

Law of Persons

This chapter discusses the law relating to children as interpreted and applied by Indian courts. It covers the following: custodial orders of minors as part of matrimonial reliefs; custodial orders of minors independent of matrimonial reliefs; the role of courts as parens patriae; foreign custody and guardianship order; law relating to property of children; declaration of legitimacy or parentage; proof of legitimacy; jurisdictional competence of Indian courts to grant declarations of legitimation; adoption; maintenance orders; and reciprocal enforcement of maintenance orders.

CHILDREN BEYOND CONTROL IN MALAYSIAN COURT FOR CHILDREN

It is well known that the Malaysian Court For Children has jurisdiction over the children who commit crimes and being the victims of abuse, neglect or immoral behaviour. Nevertheless, not many people aware that the court can also hear applications against children beyond the control of their parents or guardians although their misbehaviour is non-criminal in nature such as truancy, running away from home, coming home late and disobedience of parental orders. This granting of jurisdiction indicates the intervention of government in inter-family conflicts, specifically relating to the parent-child relationship. The “beyond control” order made by the court will transfer parental authority from the parents to the government. Therefore, this study is conducted to identify the basis of the jurisdiction of the Court For Children in Malaysia in deciding children beyond control cases and to analyse to what extent the court may intervene in resolving their misbehaviour. To achieve such objectives, this study applies the library research method in collecting data by analysing statutes, books, journals, print media, conference proceedings and other documents. This study concludes that the handling of children beyond control cases by the Court For Children is done based on parens patriae principle which originates from the English common law whereby the parent's failure in controlling their children allows the court to intervene.

L’arrêt Eve et le droit québécois

Le but de ce texte est de démontrer que l’arrêt Eve a relativement peu de pertinence en droit québécois. Deux aspects sont examinés. Le premier a trait aux pouvoirs de la Cour supérieure quant à la doctrine de parens patriae. À la différence des tribunaux de droit commun des provinces de common law du Canada, les tribunaux québécois n’ont jamais bénéficié des pouvoirs d’une Court of Chancery et n’ont jamais reçu par délégation les pouvoirs de parens patriae. Le deuxième aspect porte sur le droit du curateur de consentir seul à la stérilisation de personnes sous sa charge. L’auteur est d’opinion que même s’il s’agit d’une situation qui peut entraîner des abus, ce pouvoir existe actuellement. Les réformes proposées dans le domaine du droit des personnes corrigeront sans doute ces lacunes.

The Eve Decision — A Common Law Perspective

By its decision in the Eve case, the Supreme Court of Canada clarified and settled the law in at least two important respects. From now on, provincial statutes can only be used to authorize guardians to permit involuntary contraceptive sterilizations if their wording clearly and explicitly so provides. The Prince Edward Island statute in question did not do so. Secondly, though the Court's parens patriae jurisdiction is of unlimited scope and does extend to cases involving medical procedures, it cannot serve as the basis for authorizing non-therapeutic sterilizations. By ruling out the applicability of parens patriae, and by insisting that judges are not able to deal adequately with such cases, the Supreme Court may have strengthened the case for new legislation in this area. The writer argues that such legislation should provide for access to contraceptive sterilization for the mentally disabled, and the needed safeguards to protect those unable to consent or refuse from the imposition of sterilization in the interests of parties other than themselves.