MEMBERS of a tribunal panel will be the most important part of Guernsey’s new child welfare and justice system, former Bailiff Sir de Vic Carey has said.

A law will be implemented next year that will move young people away from the Juvenile Court.

They will instead be dealt with using the Child Youth and Community Tribunal system – where 30 members of the community are appointed, extensively trained and three of them sit as a panel at every hearing. But the tribunals do not deal solely with offenders.

Concerns about a child’s welfare might have been raised by a family member, a neighbour, a teacher, or the police and the tribunal will look at the juvenile’s whole life to identify the problem areas where support is needed.

Sir de Vic, pictured, who is the deputy chairman of the convener board that will monitor the system, had been impressed with the CYCT when he had sat in on hearings in Scotland – which has been using it since 1971.

‘As a judge, I am impressed how removing decision-making to an informal panel of well-trained members of the community, who are not lawyers, removes much of the reticence that is necessarily present on both sides in a court,’ he said.