Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad has sought to clear the air on his call for laws to hold par­ents re­spon­si­ble for their chil­dren’s crim­i­nal ac­tions dur­ing a re­cent ser­mon at the Mara­bel­la Pres­by­ter­ian Church.

Seep­er­sad, a lay min­is­ter for the past 20 years, made the com­ment while speak­ing on Parental and Youth Ac­count­abil­i­ty.

But the com­ment gen­er­at­ed a lot of at­ten­tion, in­clud­ing from the Ju­di­cia­ry which is­sued a state­ment ad­vis­ing that Sec­tion 57 (1) to (5) of the Chil­dren Act No. 12 of 2012, as well as the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Supreme Court of Ju­di­ca­ture and Chil­dren) Act, 2018, which amends Part IX A Sec­tion 50 A (3) of the Chil­dren Act, pro­vide for such parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Though acute­ly aware of the leg­is­la­tion the Ju­di­cia­ry re­ferred to, Seep­er­sad, in a let­ter to the ed­i­tor, said he made no spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to Sec­tion 57 for two spe­cif­ic rea­sons. First­ly, he said it was a ser­mon and not a le­gal pre­sen­ta­tion.

“Sec­ond­ly and more im­por­tant­ly, sec­tion 57 vests the Court with a dis­cre­tion, which may or may not be ex­er­cised by the pre­sid­ing ju­di­cial of­fi­cer. This dis­cre­tion ex­ists in the con­text of the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive ap­proach which has to be adopt­ed and does not cre­ate a crim­i­nal of­fence. The ser­mon fo­cused on the need for ac­count­abil­i­ty at all lev­els and in re­la­tion to the is­sue of parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty, called for con­sid­er­a­tion to be giv­en to the en­act­ment of more ef­fec­tive laws so as to im­pose sanc­tions on those whose chil­dren are in­volved in gang ac­tiv­i­ty, har­bour guns at home or who cre­ate so­cial hav­oc.

“Such a cir­cum­stance is not cov­ered by sec­tion 57 of the Chil­dren’s Act and it was ad­vanced that in the ab­sence of such a leg­isla­tive frame­work, the com­mon law could be cre­ative­ly utilised. The ser­mon al­so ref­er­enced sec­tion 50(a) of the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions 2018 Act, giv­en that it was ex­press­ly stat­ed that in re­la­tion to chil­dren who are not lis­ten­ing, their par­ents should in­form the po­lice and “let the ju­di­cial sys­tem take hold them so that a struc­tured path to re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion could be en­gaged.”

Seep­er­sad said the code of ethics gov­ern­ing ju­di­cial of­fi­cers un­der­scores the abil­i­ty of judges, out­side of their court work, to speak on mat­ters of law and to en­gage in teach­ing and train­ing.

“Drawn to the ju­rispru­den­tial the­o­ry of le­gal in­ter­pre­tivism and be­ing res­olute in the view that the law has to be rel­e­vant and re­lat­able, the over­rid­ing ob­jec­tive of the ser­mon was to ini­ti­ate a rea­soned de­bate in re­la­tion to the root caus­es of the cur­rent state of so­cial dis­junc­tion, to en­cour­age a will­ing­ness for greater so­ci­etal sup­port to those who are vul­ner­a­ble and to de­vel­op with­in the so­ci­ety, the temer­i­ty to con­front those who en­able crim­i­nal con­duct.”

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the Ju­di­cia­ry’s state­ment on this mat­ter, he said, “The time­ly press re­lease by the Ju­di­cia­ry on this is­sue, giv­en the deaf­en­ing si­lence on oth­er sig­nif­i­cant mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance which im­pact up­on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, is in­deed re­fresh­ing and it is hoped that all is­sues which im­pact, in­ter alia, up­on the pub­lic’s con­fi­dence in the Ju­di­cia­ry, would be ad­dressed with a re­newed mea­sure of alacrity.”

Un­der Sec­tion 57

Where a child is con­vict­ed of an of­fence and the Court is of the view that the par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the child has failed to ex­er­cise rea­son­able care of or su­per­vi­sion over the child to en­sure that the child does not com­mit an of­fence, the Court may call up­on the par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the child to show cause why he should not be re­quired to pay a fine in ad­di­tion to that which is to be paid by the child or for the child by or­der of the Court and if the par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the child fails to show good cause, the Court may or­der—

(a) the par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the child to pay a fine to the Court; (b) the par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the child to at­tend coun­selling on such terms as the Court may or­der; and (c) with the con­sent of the par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the child, to en­ter in­to a recog­ni­sance to take prop­er care of the child and to ex­er­cise prop­er su­per­vi­sion over the child.

(3) Where a par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the child re­fus­es to en­ter in­to a recog­ni­sance and the Court con­sid­ers the re­fusal to be un­rea­son­able, that per­son com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of five thou­sand dol­lars.

Un­der the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Supreme Court of Ju­di­ca­ture and Chil­dren) Act, 2018, which amends Part IX A Sec­tion 50 A (3) of the Chil­dren Act, a par­ent, guardian or per­son with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty who is un­able to con­trol the child, may ap­ply to the court for an or­der deem­ing the child to be a child in need of su­per­vi­sion.