G (Children), Re

When determining a child’s upbringing, the court must assess welfare holistically and over the short, medium and long term. It must respect religious diversity without judging the validity of beliefs, but parental religious wishes prevail only so far as they accord with the child’s best interests.

Acting as a judicial reasonable parent, the court should promote equality of opportunity, aspiration and the child’s future autonomy. It should be cautious about approving an upbringing which forecloses or unduly restricts the child’s ability to choose and pursue a way of life in adulthood.

The father appealed from orders made in private law proceedings under Part II of the Children Act 1989. The county court had made a residence order in favour of the mother, provided for extensive paternal contact and directed that the five children attend the modern Orthodox schools proposed by the mother rather than schools within their family’s ultra-Orthodox Chareidi community.

The living arrangements were no longer disputed. The father sought a shared residence order and challenged the schooling decision. The central education issue was whether the advantages of wider educational and vocational opportunities outweighed the religious, cultural, familial and emotional consequences of changing the children’s schools and way of life.

1. Disposition. Permission to appeal on shared residence was refused. Permission was granted on the education issue, but the appeal was dismissed unanimously. The county court had applied the correct law and reached a decision which was not plainly wrong.
2. A child’s welfare under section 1(a) of the Children Act 1989 embraces everything affecting development and present and future life. It includes ethical, social, moral, religious, cultural, emotional, familial and educational considerations. Welfare must be assessed holistically, with regard to the child’s relationships and the medium and long-term consequences of the decision.
3. The court must act as a judicial reasonable parent, applying contemporary community standards. Those standards require tolerance of lawful religious diversity and neutrality between competing beliefs. The court must not rank religions or determine the validity of doctrine. Nevertheless, a parent’s religious wishes are effective only to the extent that they serve the child’s best interests.
4. Contemporary reasonable parenting seeks to promote equality of opportunity, encourage aspiration and equip a child to decide in adulthood what kind of life to lead. A court should therefore be cautious about approving arrangements which may foreclose or unduly restrict the child’s future choices and ability to realise legitimate aspirations.
5. The judge was entitled to find that the mother’s schools offered substantially wider secondary, tertiary and vocational opportunities. He was also entitled to accept the assessment that those schools offered better prospects of preserving relationships with both parents, adapting to family separation and retaining a genuine future choice between different degrees of religious observance. He recognised that changing schools would alter the children’s whole way of life and cause significant cultural, religious and familial losses, but permissibly concluded that the balance favoured the mother’s proposals.
6. The court’s decision concerned private law proceedings initiated because the parents could not agree. It did not suggest that similar religious upbringing could justify care proceedings. State intervention under Part IV requires the threshold in section 31(2) of the Children Act 1989 and remains subject to Convention protections.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Permission to appeal was refused on the shared residence issue. Permission was granted on the education issue, but the appeal was dismissed: [2012] EWCA Civ 1233 .
2. Willesden County Court: His Honour Judge Copley made a residence order in favour of the mother, ordered extensive contact with the father and directed that the children attend the schools proposed by the mother.