Law Commons^™

Adult Rights As The Achilles’ Heel Of The Best Interests Standard: Lessons In Family Law From Across The Pond, Margaret Ryznar

Margaret Ryznar

Family law litigants have long searched for permutations of constitutional principles that gain access to federal courts. Typically, such litigants have been most successful with due process and equal protection arguments—even at the expense of the venerable “best interests of the child” standard in child-related cases. One legal system currently wrestling with this familiar clash between the interests of children and adults is that of England—where adults are armed with the rights granted by the Human Rights Act 1998, while children’s interests are given preference in an earlier act, the Children Act 1989. England’s strategy in dealing with this conflict …