New Petitions

The next petition, PE589, is from Mr George McAuley, on behalf of the UK Men's Movement. It calls on the Parliament to take the necessary steps to recognise parental alienation syndrome and to develop early intervention strategies to prevent it. Members will be aware that we have already considered a number of petitions—PE413, PE438, PE465 and PE492—relating to issues surrounding parental alienation syndrome and that we accepted the Executive's position that parental alienation syndrome is not a sufficiently well-defined medical term to make its diagnosis certain or appropriate in legislation. We also accepted the Executive's view that it is confident that the judiciary is well aware of and takes account of behavioural issues that may be attributed to PAS when it reaches decisions involving children.The petition raises a new dimension. The petitioner now argues that under the European convention on human rights case law, member states are required to ensure that child care authorities and courts under their direction and control are made aware of PAS and are provided with suitable training. George McAuley cites a case in Germany. However, members will see that the information that has been supplied in support of the petition, in paragraph 36 of the European Court of Human Rights judgment on page 6, states:"The applicant concluded that the German authorities had violated their duty resulting from Article 8 of the Convention to protect citizens' human rights, in that they had failed, up to that point, to make the results of international research on the PAS known to the German youth authorities and family courts by providing them with suitable training."That is the applicant's view; it is not necessarily the court's view. I suggest that we seek the legal advice of our advisers to clarify what the position of the European Court of Human Rights is before we consider the petition further. Is that acceptable?Members indicated agreement.