The Inquiry on the rights of the child presented its proposal in March this year for transposing the CRC into Swedish law. The aim is to strengthen the rights of children. The Inquiry’s survey showed in particular that the CRC had not made sufficient impact in terms of the application of the law. The CRC is not Swedish law, but Swedish law should be interpreted as far as possible so that it complies with the CRC. Now the proposal being made instead is that it should become law, which means that it can be applied directly.
The hope is to deal with the breaches which the Inquiry has identified in cases where children are not regarded as holders of rights by the authorities. The “Child’s best interests” principle is not used as a procedure and often fails to feature in child impact analyses and individual assessments.