Paragraph (f), page 63 (recommendation that Child Welfare Act be completely redrafted, etc.)
A complete redraft of the Act is now in course of preparation.
Further comments on paragraph (f) above were made by Dr Beeby. They are as follow:
"We think that the right of appeal from the decisions of the Children's Courts might be usefully made explicit in the Child Welfare Act. We agree also that it might be well to provide for the right of appeal against the Superintendent in certain circumstances. If the system is to be workable and not brought to a standstill by a mass of frivolous appeals, it will be necessary to restrict the right of appeal. If an appeal were to lie every time the Superintendent shifted a ward of State, the proceedings would be endless. The only appeal, we think, should be one to have a child discharged from the care of the Superintendent. Serious complaints of ill treatment could be aired in this way. We are not able to suggest, off-hand, exactly what the restrictions should be, and very full discussions between Child Welfare authorities and legal authorities would be necessary as a preliminary to effective legislation on the point."
Little, if anything, appeared in the Mazengarb Committee's report to justify us in thinking that a right of appeal of the kind suggested should be provided. The Committee express the hope that a step of this kind should not be taken unless sound reasons were advanced for taking it.
Summary of Proposals for Administrative Action
In its report at pages 67 and 68 the Mazengarb Committee set out a number of proposals which in its view could be met by appropriate action on the part of the Departments mentioned by the Committee. The suggestions made have been considered by the Departments, and we give below a statement of the extent to which the suggestions have been carried into effect.
(a) Police Department
It was suggested that the training of policewomen should be considered with a view to deciding the best method of dealing with girls involved in sexual offences.
For the information of Parliament we set out below a few excerpts from a report prepared in the Police Department and sent to us by the Minister of Police. The excerpts are to the following effect: