Law and Minors
Intervention
Principles of Intervention
The Best Interests Test:
This is used in common law regarding decision making for patients who do not yet have capacity.
The decision must be based on the patient's best interests and not the interests of others.
B. (R.) v. Children's Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto
This case involved a baby who had been born prematurely and had many medical problems including anemia. The parents were Jehovah's Witness and so the child had been apprehended and made a ward of the Children's Aid society so that a blood transfusion could be given. The court considered the parent's claim that this infringed upon their Charter of Rights to liberty and religious freedom.
The Supreme Court held that the child protection proceedings did not breach the Charter and that the child should have recieved the therapy.
"The common law has long recognized the power of the state to intervene to protect children whose lives are in jeopardy and to promote their well-being, basing such intervention on its parens patriae jurisdiction. "
"An exercise of parental liberty which seriously endangers the survival of the child should be viewed as falling outside s. 7 of the Charter."
Link to Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
