The High Court refused to quash decisions made at child protection conferences concerning two boys, while finding that their parents had not been given adequate information or time to prepare for the November 2014 conference. The court said it would hear the parties on what declaratory order, if any, should be made.
The parents challenged conferences convened by the Child and Family Agency in June and November 2014. They sought, among other relief, to prevent the Agency from applying to the District Court for supervision orders unless it first disclosed specified material. They argued that the conferences and resulting plans were unfair and relied on unsubstantiated information.
The June conference went ahead without the parents. They had received a general invitation and leaflet but no detail of the issues to be discussed. It decided that the boys faced an ongoing risk of significant harm, continued their active listing on the Child Protection Notification System (CPNS), and recommended supervision applications and a parenting assessment. The Agency later withdrew the pending applications and convened a further conference.
Before the November conference, the Agency sent the parents a social work report. The parents did not attend, and their solicitor received the meeting minutes and plans afterwards. The conference considered earlier history and current concerns, including limited sibling contact, difficulties in social workers meeting the boys privately, and one boy’s school absence. It also recorded positive information about the boys’ school lives and their bond with their mother. The conference decided to continue their CPNS listing and seek supervision orders.
Justice Iseult O’Malley distinguished between a conference’s role in considering whether to bring a matter before the District Court and its decision to list a child on the CPNS. She refused to prohibit the Agency from seeking court orders, saying the District Court was the proper forum to assess the evidence and could address procedural deficiencies. She made no finding about whether the parents’ criminal charges affected their ability to care for the boys.
But a CPNS listing had legal effect, the judge said, because it gave certain professionals access to private family information. Parents therefore had to receive fair procedures before a conference took such a step. The June invitation and leaflet were inadequate, and the November report was provided too late and disclosed too little to allow proper preparation. The judge said the Agency’s policy document offered an appropriate procedural model, while declining to rule that it bound the Agency at the time.
The court refused certiorari and prohibition. It found the June challenge was out of time and said neither conference had made the original CPNS listing decision: the November conference had continued an existing listing. The judge declined to extend time for the June challenge and concluded that, in the circumstances, the High Court could not properly reverse the continued listing. The judgment did not determine the requested declaratory relief; the parties were to be heard on the order to be made.