The directive, informally agreed with the Council last December, recognises the right of anyone under 18 to be assisted by a lawyer and to be accompanied by the holder of parental responsibility (or another appropriate adult) through most of the proceedings.
“The text presents a catalogue of rights and guarantees as a common European model of fair trials for minors in which we strike a balance between the need to ascertain responsibility for crime and the need to take due account of minors’ vulnerability and specific needs”, said Italian MEP Caterina Chinnici, who steered the legislation through Parliament. The new directive was approved by 613 votes to 30, with 56 abstentions.
The draft directive aims to ensure that children can understand and follow court proceedings and are prevented from re-offending. The child’s best interest must always be the primary consideration, says the text. The directive also includes the right to an individual assessment by qualified personnel and to a medical examination if the child is deprived of liberty.
MEPs inserted a provision to ensure that children always have the right of access to a lawyer. Exceptions to this right may be made only if it deemed not to be proportionate in the light of the circumstances of the case, or in exceptional cases, at the pre-trial stage, given the child’s best interest.
The directive would require EU member states to ensure that deprivation of liberty, and in particular detention, is imposed on children only as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate period. Children who are detained should be held separately from adults, unless it is considered to be in the child’s best interests not to do so