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LONDON — Advocates of parental rights won a major victory in the United Kingdom when a controversial “chaperoning” law was struck down – and they won again when a court ordered the government to pay the legal bill.
As previously reported by Off The Grid News, the Scottish law would have appointed a government-approved guardian to every child in Scotland. The British Supreme Court rejected the law this summer, and then last month told the Scottish government it was responsible for a £250,000 legal bill from the No to Named Persons (NO2NP) campaign, which had filed suit against the law. The £250,000 bill is equal to around $315,000 in the U.S.
Scotland’s government would have violated the rights of parents and children by assigning a “named person” (an official such as a teacher or social worker) to monitor every child, the British Supreme Court ruled. The court also found that the scheme would have violated the European Convention on Human Rights by sharing sensitive and private information about family life with the government without consent.
The chaperone-for-every-child law was passed in 2014 and was set to go into effect this year, with around 1 million children and minors receiving guardians.
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“The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get to the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world,” Lord Patrick Stewart Hodge, a Supreme Court Justice, wrote in his ruling. “Within limits, families must be left to bring up their children in their own way.”
“Secondly, those provisions may in practice result in disproportionate interference with those rights, with limited safeguards available to individuals affected,” Hodge wrote. “As presently drafted, they are at risk of placing those tasked with delivering the scheme on the ground in breach of important regulations protecting privacy and confidentiality.”
Child Protection or Big Brother?
As part of its “The Getting it Right for Every Child Strategy,” the Scottish government wanted to assign a named person to monitor the welfare of every child in Scotland. The person could have been a teacher, social worker or an employee of Britain’s National Health Service.
Advocates claimed the scheme would have made it easier for social services to help children and family.
“Giving a health visitor or teacher formal responsibility for collating information is a key part of the early warning system we need to make sure every child in Scotland is protected,” Barnardo’s, a charity that backed the scheme, told the BBC.
Critics dubbed it the “state snooper” law.
“The Big Brother scheme is history,” Simon Calvert, the spokesman for No to Named Persons, told The Telegraph. “It’s wonderful news for mums, dads and children all across Scotland who no longer have to worry about this unjustified invasion of their private lives. To many of them the Named Person scheme felt like a legal battering ram to gain access to their homes. The court has taken sides with ordinary families and put the Scottish Government back in its place.”
What is your reaction? Do you fear something similar might be tried in the U.S.? Share your thoughts in the section below:
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