It is before the Supreme Court that the legal saga will conclude concerning the possibility for a Quebec court to impose on the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse modifications to its operation in order to prevent abuse of children under its responsibility. .
It all started in January 2018, when a teenage girl was placed in a rehabilitation center dedicated to adolescents with mental health and conduct disorders, under the Youth Protection Act.
For several months, the teenager will live in different units and be subject to several isolation and restraint measures. Court documents say the teenager “banged her head on the concrete walls of small, dingy isolation rooms with no protective gear” and “was covered in a sweater when she was transported, in order to prevent her from spitting on the responders, causing her breathing difficulties and hyperventilation”.
In July 2018, an educator also refused to allow him to return to the rehabilitation center after running away.
At the end of that year, the parents of the young woman began legal proceedings with a claim for injury to rights.
The Court of Quebec then ruled in their favor and ordered several corrective measures to be taken by the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse, such as mental health training for interveners who work in individualized treatment units, so that these interveners can benefit from the support a person specialized in mental health, that a protocol be created in the event of spitting and that isolation rooms be adapted to prevent injuries.
Call in call
This judgment is being appealed to the Superior Court, which decides in February 2021 by modifying certain orders so that they are directly related to the teenager in question. For example, not all the workers will have to take training, nor all the isolation rooms will have to be adapted, but the people and the places that are in direct contact with the young girl.
This judgment is also being appealed. In December 2022, the Quebec Court of Appeal partially dismissed the judgment of the Superior Court. In the court documents, it is possible to read that the judge has “the power to make orders intended to correct the lesional situation in which a child is placed”, but that he must not “interfere in the management of the human, material and financial resources of the establishments and organizations of the network. »
Towards the Neckr supremee
On Friday, the Commission for Human Rights and Youth Rights announced in a press release that it would appeal this last judgment to the Supreme Court.
The goal: to allow “systemic orders, of general scope, to be issued to correct and prevent violations of the rights of children whose situation has been taken care of by the [DPJ] “, indicates the press release.
In other words, that a judge have the power to impose broader changes within the DYP, in order to prevent other children from undergoing the same treatment.
“According to the Commission, the fact of restricting the remedial power of the Youth Division would have the effect of supporting the perpetuation of a situation of violation of rights towards other children taken into care by the State and of resting on these children the burden of multiplying the recourses before the court to correct the situation, ”she said in a press release.