Weighing the Constitutional Balance
by Michelle Flynn
Question(s) at stake
Whether the parental refusal to consent to a medical diagnostic test on the basis of a conscientious objection constituted a failure in duty towards a child.
Outcome of the ruling
The Supreme Court held that State intervention to vindicate the child’s constitutional rights was not required as it had not been established that this case was “exceptional” on the grounds of parental failure of duty towards the child for physical or moral reasons.
Country:
Official citation
North Western Health Board v. H.W. & anor [2001] IESC 90
Topic(s)
Keywords:
Balancing act Best interests of the child Healthcare and medical interventions Parents Right to respect for family life
Tag(s):
Public health screening test Blood test
Bibliographic information
Access case report
View case report in the CUREDI databaseAbout the authors
Michelle Flynn (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Department Law and Anthropology, Germany)
Michelle Flynn is a Research Fellow in the Department of Law and Anthropology. Prior to joining the Max Planck Institute in 2018, she gained over twelve years of experience working within domestic and international courts. Flynn has held judicial support roles at national and supranational levels with members of the judiciary of Ireland, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Court of Justice of the European Union. She also has significant practical experience as a barrister and as a Consultant Legal Advisor with Irish Rule of Law International, working on judicial capacity building projects in developing countries. She is also a former academic staff member at the Faculty of Law in KU Leuven, Belgium.
Flynn holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Legal Science from the National University of Ireland, Galway; a Barrister-at-Law Degree from the Honorable Society of King’s Inns, Dublin, Ireland; and an LL.M. in International and European Public Law from KU Leuven, Belgium.
Her current research examines the jurisprudence of the superior courts in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States concerning religious prescriptions and religious personal laws. Since January 2019, she has been a Visiting Researcher at Yale Law School, where she is carrying out research concerning the relationship between law and religion in the US.