On the subject of the publicity to be given to proceedings in the Children's Court the Mazengarb Committee said:
"There may be reasons why a Children's Court should be open to the public ... The public has a right to know how child offenders have been dealt with. The Committee does not recommend any alteration in the provision prohibiting the publication of the name of any child, or of any name or particulars likely to lead to identification. Subject to this, it is desirable that reporters should be allowed to attend."
With these views we find ourselves to be in complete agreement.
Page 60, paragraph (g)
The Mazengarb Committee appeared to hold the view that when children have been placed under supervision there was no adequate "follow up" procedure.
The following is Dr Beeby's comment upon this paragraph:
"It is a little difficult to see just what the Committee are suggesting in this paragraph. If they are proposing that a Child Welfare Officer be required to report progress to a Magistrate for his personal information and to enable him to check on the correctness of his judgment, there can be no possible objection. When asked for, indeed, this is already done. If, on the other hand, it is proposed that the Magistrate have continuing authority over the child, then it would turn the Court into a social work agency and would run counter to the whole trend in the development of Children's Court and child welfare work from the beginning of this century. The Magistrate would be compelled to take on responsibilities for which he is not trained, and Child Welfare Officers would tend to become merely junior probation officers attached to the Court. One of the advantages of the present system is that the Superintendent, being the final authority, can ensure uniform standards of case work throughout New Zealand. If it were left to each individual Magistrate to decide exactly what should be done with children, it is certain that wide variations in principles and procedures would occur. Experience has shown, for example, that some Magistrates, with no first-hand knowledge of our institutions, would send to them children for whom they are not established to cater.
"With regard to the Committee's suggestion that there 'should be some person or body apart from the departmental officers to whom a child could turn for help ...', we would agree that something like the Visiting Justice system of the Justice Department might apply to our institutions as a guarantee to the public and as a protection to both children and officers. However, to extend such a system to children boarded out in private homes would be to ask for endless trouble. People would be loath to accept State wards into their homes if it laid them open to official visits from laymen whose sole function was to hear complaints from the children. The visits of Child Welfare Officers and of Inspectors of the Division must, we feel, be accepted as the main guarantee to the public of fair treatment."
Without expressing any decided opinion, the Committee felt that what the Director of Education has to say is worthy of consideration by Government.
Certain Specific Changes Proposed by the Mazengarb Committee