22 - ‘Hang On, What About the Child in This Case?’

Summary

This chapter explores Lady Hale’s judicial engagements with children’s perspectives and their rights. It highlights cases in which Lady Hale has explicitly ‘called out’ her fellow judges on a missed children’s rights perspective and has demonstrated in her reasoning its significance to the issues. Drawing on Lady Hale’s extrajudicial speeches and on other case law examples, the chapter considers how her attitudes to children and children’s issues, and her deep knowledge of the law relating to children, may underpin this alteration of the gaze. The chapter then further illustrates, with reference to cases across a range of issues, Lady Hale’s sophisticated appreciation of children’s interests, and her unrivalled judicial commitment to the law’s protection of those interests.