Study on children's involvement in judicial proceedings : contextual overview for civil justice : Finland

The promotion and protection of the rights of the child is one of the objectives of the EU on which the Treaty of Lisbon has put further emphasis. This report is part of a study 'to collect data on children's involvement in judicial proceedings in the EU' which supports the implementation of the Commission Communication of 15 February 2011 'An EU Agenda for the rights of the child', which identified the lack of reliable, comparable and official data on the situation of children in the Member States (MS). This deficiency is a serious obstacle to the development and implementation of evidence-based policies and is particularly evident in the context of child-friendly justice and the protection of children in vulnerable situations. Making the justice system more child-friendly in Europe is a key action of the EU Agenda. It is an area of high practical relevance where the EU has, under the Treaties, competences to turn the rights of the child into reality by means of EU legislation. Improved data is crucial to the framing of such legislation. The objective of this study is: to establish statistics and collect data based on structural, process and outcome indicators on children involved in civil judicial proceedings for the years 2008-2010 (and 2011 if available) for all 28 EU Member States; to provide a narrative overview of children's involvement in civil judicial proceedings in the EU. The report describes the situation in each Member State as at 1 June 2012. This report examines the safeguards in place for children involved in civil judicial proceedings. The Council of Europe Guidelines on child-friendly justice serve as a basis for the analysis of the provisions affecting children in civil judicial proceedings in each Member State.