When we wrote about family law we addressed superficially the questions related to sexual abuse of minors and issues of juvenile delinquency. The child as a victim and the child as an aggressor.
We decided to autotomize the Children Law as preferential intervention area, due to the symbolic and real importance of the protection and promotion of the rights of children, teenagers and adolescents.
Society becomes more and more aware of the fact that the way in which we treat, protect and even educate our children is not unimportant.
In fact, these days the intervention by Law and by the courts in educational matters and in the relationship between adults and children, between parents and children, between educators and pupils has risen and changed significantly with reference to a very recent past.
The child has obtained status and rights, and is able to exercise those rights and expect the Statutes and the laws to be respected.
Those laws govern the powers and duties of parents and educators as well as children’s rights, as well as their responsibilities. The structure and range of influence of these powers, duties, rights and responsibilities are now subject to discussion in terms of their content and the way in which they are to be exercised.
The growing intervention itself of the Administration (i.e. the Commissions for the Protection of Children and young people at risk) and judicial authorities (i.e. the Family Courts), frequently jeopardize the core of the family and the right to intimacy and privacy. In addition, the more fragile ones are put at risk and left unprotected by the indolence of the powers or the inadequateness of the measures.
In these and other situations, even within family mediation, the citizen, adult or child, shall not be left on his own. He shall claim the right not to be left on his own. And the lawyer is his best company and his most accurately and ably prepared defender against unfairness, arbitrarily and or abuse conduct, inertia or threat.