Cambra v Jones & Anor

A child’s participation in committal proceedings concerning a parent is fact-sensitive. Party status is not automatic, and effective participation does not necessarily require representation or joinder. However, where an articulate and mature child is profoundly affected by the proceedings, the court must give substantial weight to the child’s autonomy, expression and participation. In appropriate circumstances, participation as a party may better protect the child’s interests and assist the forensic process than participation merely as a witness.

The father applied to commit the mother for alleged breach of an order requiring the return of the children to Spain. Shortly before the hearing, the 16-year-old daughter applied to participate and be represented. She said that her own refusal to return had caused the breach, that imprisonment of her mother would affect her significantly, and that she wished to oppose further coercive efforts to secure the children’s return.

The issue was whether she should be joined as a party to the committal proceedings. The court considered her welfare, her participation rights, the availability of witness evidence, and the procedural powers under the Family Procedure Rules.

1. Application granted. The daughter was given party status in the committal proceedings. The hearing was adjourned to enable her participation.
2. Party status for a child is not routine. The court must consider the circumstances of the particular case, including the child’s best interests and whether participation would assist or damage family relationships.
3. Here, the daughter was an articulate teenager whose interests were directly and profoundly affected. The family relationships and positions of those involved were already polarised. In those circumstances, excluding her from proceedings affecting her would not serve her best interests.
4. In the case of articulate teenagers, the right to freedom of expression and participation may outweigh a paternalistic welfare assessment. The daughter’s standpoint could not adequately be represented by either adult party, and her evidence was distinct from that which the parents could give.
5. The court did not decide whether the daughter’s rights under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights were engaged at every stage of the committal proceedings. Even where article 8 rights are engaged, the resulting procedural right is involvement in the decision-making process sufficient to protect the child’s interests; it does not necessarily require representation or party status.
6. The decision was made by reference to current and developing practice. It was not intended to determine the practice of criminal courts when sentencing a defendant whose imprisonment engages the article 8 rights of the defendant’s child.

First-instance decision. The judgment records earlier decisions in the same Hague Convention proceedings, including Re Jones [2012] EWHC 2955 (Fam), Cambra v Jones [2013] EWHC 88 (Fam), and Re Jones [2013] EWHC 2579 (Fam) and Re Jones (No 2) [2013] EWHC 2730 (Fam).