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SECRETARY TO THE DEPARTMENT OF FAMILIES, FAIRNESS AND HOUSING v HAGE [No 2]
|Harris J
77 VR 1
SECRETARY TO THE DEPARTMENT OF FAMILIES, FAIRNESS AND HOUSING v HAGE [No 2] Supreme Court of VictoriaHarris J 11, 18, 20, 23 December 2024, 13, 17, 23, 31 January 2025[2025] VSC 18Courts and judges — Parens patriae jurisdiction — Infants and juveniles — Care and protection — Pregnant teenage child — Intellectual disability — Sole parental responsibility of Secretary to the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing — Intersection of statutory powers with parens patriae jurisdiction — Whether parens patriae jurisdiction extends to authorising accommodation in secure welfare service beyond statutory time limit — Statutory power to authorise medical treatment without child’s consent — Whether in best interests of child to be subject to restraint to facilitate child birth and post-delivery insertion of reversible contraception — Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (Vic), ss 8(2), 10, 11, 172, 173, 174, 175, 597.
Sections 172–175 of the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005 (Vic) (CYF Act) authorised the Secretary to the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing to place a child for whom the Secretary had sole parental responsibility, pursuant to order made under that Act, in a secure welfare service for a period not exceeding 21 days (and, in exceptional cases for one further period not exceeding 21 days), if satisfied that there was a substantial and immediate risk of harm to the child. The sections also imposed duties on the Secretary with respect to such placement. Those duties included a requirement to have regard to the child’s best interests as the first and paramount consideration and to the fact that the child’s lack of adequate accommodation was not by itself sufficient reason for placing the child in a secure welfare service, and a requirement to plan for, and support, the transfer of the child out of a secure welfare service once placed.
