In family justice, one of the biggest challenges is to effectively guarantee the right of children to participate. Though participation implies multiple benefits for the child, such as increased self-esteem, psychological wellbeing and preventing violations of rights, it is possible to detect many obstacles for it to effectively occur in court. Among these, prioritizing adults’ interests, conditioning participation of the child to their age and lack of formal regulations were noted. The present study consists of a thematic analysis of interviews with Chilean family judges about child participation. Findings point to a consideration of the infrastructure and the institutional legal organization as not being able to guarantee and facilitate child participation in the judicial system. Lack of standardization in norms and practices inside the courts encourages judges to base their decision...

In family justice, one of the biggest challenges is to effectively guarantee the right of children to participate. Though participation implies multiple benefits for the child, such as increased self-esteem, psychological wellbeing and preventing violations of rights, it is possible to detect many obstacles for it to effectively occur in court. Among these, prioritizing adults’ interests, conditioning participation of the child to their age and lack of formal regulations were noted. The present study consists of a thematic analysis of interviews with Chilean family judges about child participation. Findings point to a consideration of the infrastructure and the institutional legal organization as not being able to guarantee and facilitate child participation in the judicial system. Lack of standardization in norms and practices inside the courts encourages judges to base their decision...

In family justice, one of the biggest challenges is to effectively guarantee the right of children to participate. Though participation implies multiple benefits for the child, such as increased self-esteem, psychological wellbeing and preventing violations of rights, it is possible to detect many obstacles for it to effectively occur in court. Among these, prioritizing adults’ interests, conditioning participation of the child to their age and lack of formal regulations were noted. The present study consists of a thematic analysis of interviews with Chilean family judges about child participation. Findings point to a consideration of the infrastructure and the institutional legal organization as not being able to guarantee and facilitate child participation in the judicial system. Lack of standardization in norms and practices inside the courts encourages judges to base their decision...

Abstract: The International Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes their right to participate in all matters affecting them. Alongside, there is the widely studied phenomenon of secondary victimization (SV)in criminal justice. This article critically analyses the existence of SV in the context of family courts. In a qualitative study, the opinions of judges (n = 10), lawyers (n = 10) and children (n = 6) regarding child participation in family cases are explored. The analysis of the data provided by the interviews of judges and lawyers was made based on ten dimensions of analysis; and, in addition, the dogmatic method was used, with the description and comparative and critical analysis of the law, which was confronted with the aspects collected in the empirical work. The data analysis of the child participants was carried out by means of a categorical analysis based on three c...

Abstract: The International Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes their right to participate in all matters affecting them. Alongside, there is the widely studied phenomenon of secondary victimization (SV)in criminal justice. This article critically analyses the existence of SV in the context of family courts. In a qualitative study, the opinions of judges (n = 10), lawyers (n = 10) and children (n = 6) regarding child participation in family cases are explored. The analysis of the data provided by the interviews of judges and lawyers was made based on ten dimensions of analysis; and, in addition, the dogmatic method was used, with the description and comparative and critical analysis of the law, which was confronted with the aspects collected in the empirical work. The data analysis of the child participants was carried out by means of a categorical analysis based on three c...