TOWARDS A CHILD-CENTERED JUSTICE SYSTEM - THE NORMATIVE AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF LEGAL EDUCATION IN PROMOTING FAMILY RIGHTS AND EMPOWERMENT

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the global shift towards “child friendly” or rather “child centered” justice has focused on the need to value children’s rights, agency, and family contexts within the legal system. The actualization of this shift relies not only on legislative changes and institutional innovations, but the impact of legal education. If legal practitioners were educated and children and families were empowered then the justice system would shift towards being more “child-centered”, In this instance, legal education would have to be directly concerned with the empowerment of families, children, and legal actors, as the only way to shift the normative agenda of justice is to translate it into lived empowerment. The paper identifies and discusses the core elements of this to be legal education, the teaching of family rights, & implications that derive from that. The interface that family rights provide is the unique conduit through which legal education might address the chasm that exists between formal rights and actual empowerment, particularly in support of children’s rights. Some of the key challenges in this regard, which have been directed towards law schools, include continuing professional education, and community legal literacy initiatives.