Forced adoption: Two weeks ago a norwegian mother stood in front of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, where it was to be decided on the forced adoption of her son, who was then 3 weeks old. Foto: Reuters / NTB Scanpix
Many of us become very stupid and mean when we get the power.
Written by lawyer Fridtjof P. Gundersen for Dagbladet on October 31st 2018
When the mother's CPS case gets evaluated again, is because there has been a smoldering feeling of unfairness, arbitrariness and abuse of power from the authorities.
Wednesday, October 17th, European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the big chamber hall is full packed. A bell rings and the 17 judges come inn.
The mother, who got her first child forced adopted, stands up worthy in front of the judges that will decide if Norway violated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). She has with her a french lawyer and pictures of herself and her children. A few meters away stands Fredrik Sejerstad, the lawyer of the norwegian government. He doesn't have any client with him, but a leash of good looking young advisors. All of them had a safe upbringing and good characters.
They will never experience what this mother did: that Barnevernet came and tore out her 3 weeks old son from her arms.
Barnevernet said that she didn't give the boy basic care. Later on the mother got married and had two more children. Nobody has had anything to say about the care for these two children.
Seen like that, Norway starts uphill, because the evolution of the case gives a strong indication that it was wrong to take the son from the mother, and you just sit with the feeling that forced adoption is wrong. It doesn't seem right to cut the actual and legally existing bonds between an obviously competent mother and her son.
Norway was absolved in the first round at the ECtHR, with four votes against three. The weight on the scale was the norwegian judge Erik Møse. He is now back at the Supreme Court, where he had a leave of absence.
This mother's case is one of nine - 9! - norwegian CPS cases that are being processed at the ECtHR. This is already extreme, specially for what is called a "human rights nation" as Norway is. No other country has experienced something similar.
Even more extreme is that the norwegian Supreme Court has only processed one of the cases. Møse and his colleagues have abdicated and made the ECtHR the real court of appeals in the Barnevernet cases.
Besides being a betrayal against the children and parents involved, it is unfair to the European Convention on Human Rights, which assumes that issues of breach of the Convention are dealt with nationally. We are talking about a legal breakdown.
When the case gets a new process in the ECtHR, is because there has been a smoldering feeling of unfairness, arbitrariness and abuse of power from the authorities. But it is also because the case is crossroads for the ECtHR itself.
The ECtHR has determined that the best for a child is to be with its parents, unless the parents are clearly incapable to take care of them. The situations where CPS takes over the care have to be temporary and the goal is always to return the children to their parents. Forced adoptions can only happen in complete extraordinary situations.
In Norway, on the other hand, we have something called "a child centered perspective", that puts less weight in the biological bonds between parents and children, so the intervention threshold is low if someone thinks that "is for the best of the child". The last years the ECtHR has increasingly adopted this same perspective.
The minority in the first round of the case has made clear that if Norway acquittal remains, it will no longer be a link between life and learning in the ECtHR, so that people will get tricked into believing that they have a protection that they don't have. Then will the ECtHR have come there where Norway has been for a long time.
Politicians, psychologists and lawyers have ignored the fact that someone must decide what is the best for a child, for ever, in thousands of specific cases. In Norway is Barnevernet the one deciding, scattered over the many municipalities in the country and staffed with women with a cheap education and low salaries.
There is also good Barnevernet and very competent staff. But the experience is that placing the children out of their homes, too often appear to be arbitrary authority interventions, built on a premature first impression. The case workers often act conflict-oriented, so at any time can be characterized as prosecution and systematic bullying.
This is far away from the politicians ideas that complex and nuanced evaluations are being performed. CPS employees are regular people, and many of us become actually very stupid and mean when we get the power to decide whenever what is best.
The case of this mother is the typical norwegian CPS case. She asked herself for help from CPS. With the newborn baby, she was placed in a "family center". Against the midwives evaluations, the center recommended an emergency relocation of her son. The center meant that the mother didn't fulfill her son's emotional needs, among other things.
80% of the cases where Barnevernet takes over the care start with emergency resolutions, and more than half part are justified by the lack of emotional care. Such deficiencies are mostly and only seen by a priesthood of psychologists and CPS case workers. As a famous expert said to the Court of Appeals: "you need to use a magnifier to see them". The judges are set on the sideline.
When it was shown that the mother was well able take care of her children, was her demand of returning her son denied with the justification that the son has "special needs" that only extra competent foster parents can cover. The special needs of the boys were never explained. Also this is typical.
The procedures of the government lawyer reflect the authority climate in the CPS cases. He accused the mother for not having established a bond to the boy during the visitations. With four short visitations per year, and with CPS staff and the foster mother hanging over them, of course it is impossible to establish anything. This argument seemed cruel and dishonest, but it is unfortunately typical.
Further said Sejerstad that relocating the boy with his family was not possible, because the father was unknown. He chose to blame to mother for being a single mother. A prejudice from the '50s. Is this how the norwegian government wishes to appear in front of Europe?
The Norwegian Government's child centered perspective is in reality a revolutionary ideology. In the name of the good intentions ("the child's best"), a bad endowed institution is given an almost unlimited power. The last barrier was the ECtHR's clear legal base that the best for the children is to be with their parents, or at least to maintain a bond with them.
This is what Norway is attacking in this case. And this is why this is so important. Without barriers for the intervention of the authorities in our lives, is just the raw, naked and arbitrary power left again. This mother is doing an important and brave work for all of us.
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