FINLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Pekka Tuunainen, Pekka Tuunainen Attorneys Ltd
can be heard with nobody else but one or more members of the court present, if this is neces - sary to protect the child or to find out the child’s independent opinion. If the child is considered mature enough to give their opinion on the case, it will be taken into account, all things being con - sidered. The older the child is, the more decisive the child’s opinion can be. If a child is, for exam - ple 16 or older, and the child’s opinion is genuine, it has great significance. In practice, children are not very often heard at court. A child’s opinion is normally reported in a status evaluation made by a local social office at the request of the court. 3.4 ADR Parents have the option to use a local social welfare office’s services on child matters. These offices are required to offer help to parents to reach an agreement on all child-related matters. If parents are willing to agree, this is the most common way to take care of an agreement out - side court and the majority of agreements are actually made at the social welfare offices. If agreement is reached, the social welfare office has powers to verify such agreement and after this, the parents’ agreement is equivalent to a court order and it is also instantly enforceable like a court order. Also in child-related matters, the courts offer the possibility of mediation. Such mediation is stated in law and it is completely voluntary. Not
using it does not have any negative effect on the normal court proceeding. Mediation is run by another experienced judge, that was not previ - ously involved with the case. One of the biggest advantages is the speed of the process, which can be significantly less than with normal court proceedings. If agreement is reached at court mediation, the status of the agreement is equal to a court judg - ment. Agreement is legally final and enforceable immediately. Use of these alternative mechanisms are vol - untary and a case can be taken into full court handling at any time. 3.5 Media Access and Transparency If a child-related case is at court, those are pub - lic cases. Only documents and hearings related to health issues are generally non-public infor - mation. The media is able to report on these matters, but to protect the privacy of the child, names of the parties cannot be disclosed if there is no substantial public interest in the case. Names of the parties cannot be anonymised if the case is public, as they normally are. The media is not allowed to report names as a default to protect the privacy of the parties. The media follows this expectation well and child-related matters are rarely in the media; mainly child- abduction cases are ones that are reported.
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