"Jeunesse against the NL" door Julien Luscuere

In the ruling of the ECHR on 3 October 2014 in the case of Mrs Jeunesse and her three Dutch children vs. the Netherlands, the court, again, made it clear that the interests of the childen 'must be afforded a significant weight':

(109.) Where children are involved, their best interests must be taken into account [...] On this particular point, the Court reiterates that there is a broad consensus, including in international law, in support of the idea that in all decisions concerning children, their best interests are of paramount importance [...]. Whilst alone they cannot be decisive, such interests certainly must be afforded significant weight. Accordingly, national decision-making bodies should, in principle, advert to and assess evidence in respect of the practicality, feasibility and proportionality of any removal of a non-national parent in order to give effective protection and sufficient weight to the best interests of the children directly affected by it.

So actually this ruling is very consistent with earlier decisions and it can hardly be called ground breaking. Especially since the summed up facts in this case are very extraordinary that will make a tough precedent for other cases. Still it is welcome that the court reiterates its perspective, since the reluctance at the authorities and courts in the Netherlands to give priority, or at least great value, to the interests of the child in immigration law seems similar to cattle smelling the nearby abattoir. There is still a lot of work to do, I'm afraid.
More interesting is the dissenting opinion of the Dutch judge Mr Silvis, who was elected last year in the ECHR but whose candidature wasn't without controversy in the Netherlands due to his rather vague and even disputed profile to the subject of human rights. His opinion, collaborated with the judges of Lichtenstein and - not very surprisingly - the UK ends in a quite prosaic way:

"The right answer in hard cases is the one that fulfils the obligation of the community to treat its members in a civilised but also coherent and principled manner. In replacing the domestic balancing exercise by a strong reliance on the exceptional character of the particular circumstances, the Court is drifting away from the subsidiary role assigned to it by the Convention, perhaps being guided more by what is humane, rather than by what is right.

It's a consideration that first sounds balanced and valid. But what does it really say? Is "human guidance" to be distinguished from "rightful guidance"? Are these two different legal entities that cannot have the same scope or purpose? And if so, can someone tell me what the basic paradigm is of the concept of human rights? Wasn't it supposed to connect the fundamental rights of human existence in their relation of state sovereignty?
In my opinion and unfortunately, Mr Silvis already has proved relevance to earlier criticism whether he would be the right person for this job, in trying to tear apart two basic elements of law from each other, rather than finding an appropriate and valid way to merge them in a more sophisticated manner. I'm not saying this will be easy, but it would be a good idea if he took more time to acknowledge the autonomous position of the child within the framework of the human(e) rights. 

Bron: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141005133654-54823442-jeunesse-against-the-nl?trk=hb_ntf_MEGAPHONE_ARTICLE_POST





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