‘Child protection’, ‘mature minor’, and education laws that allow government to intervene in family life and even take children from their parents have their origins in ‘PARENS PATRIAE’ which means ‘the parent of the fatherland’.
This concept dates back to the 1200s England when King Edward 1 took on the right to manage (and steal from) the property of orphans who were his ‘wards’.
See the article below.
From the beginning, these laws created profit and caused abuse.
This feudal thinking is embedded in the child protection laws which are based on the assumption that government care of children is always safe. This may be why the government does not need to prove that it is safe but parents need to prove that they are safe: parents are ‘guilty until proven innocent’ in child protection laws.
But there is much evidence that children in government care have been harmed, killed, starved, tortured, abused, robbed, sexually exploited. Yet courts do not need to balance the risks of harm in government care with the risks of parental care.
These laws need to be challenged as violating children’s and parents’ rights.
2017 May – Lecture on Legal History – by The Honourable Justice Paul L G Brereton AM RFD – Sydney Law School, Australia – “THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF THE PARENS PATRIAE JURISDICTION”