The court in The Hague ruled today that it is not necessarily unlawful for families with children to be cut off from drinking water when parents cannot pay the water bill. Children’s rights organization Defence for Children and the Dutch Legal Committee for Human Rights (NJCM) took the Dutch state and public water companies Dunea and PWN to court because disconnection violates human and children’s rights. The organizations are disappointed in the ruling and are considering follow-up steps.
Vulnerable
Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have an independent right to access clean drinking water. This right, according to Defense for Children and the NJCM, is compromised by a closure. Moreover, children bear the brunt of a foreclosure when they are not responsible for the debt incurred. The Disconnection Regulation prohibits disconnection of water to vulnerable consumers for whom such disconnection poses serious health risks. Children are not necessarily identified as vulnerable consumers.
Lawyer Jelle Klaas of PILP: “We differ substantively with the court on whether children have an independent right to water. It was only a small step for the court to forbid that children in general may still be disconnected. We are disappointed that the court did not do so. Now it remains possible for vulnerable children to go without water and suffer the harmful consequences.”
Verdict
The judge now states that children have a right to access water under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights, but that this right is not absolute. Thus, despite these treaties, the State and the water companies are allowed to cut off households with minor children from drinking water in case of non-payment. Where this is done in compliance with the Closing Order, it is not generally unlawful toward children, the court said.
Incomprehensible, says Mariëlle Bahlmann, Juvenile Law Legal Advisor with Defense for Children: “Precisely because of their vulnerability, children should receive extra protection. Governments should therefore always put the interests of the child first when making and implementing legislation and policy. The government failed to do this when drafting the Closure Policy Regulations. It is disappointing that the court will not uphold this.”
Room for individual cases
What is positive is that the judge, like the plaintiffs, takes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other treaties as a starting point. The judge also confirmed that water companies cannot simply shut off families. The ruling leaves room for families with children who are disconnected from water in the future to still go to court themselves and argue on the basis of international child and human rights that they should be connected to water. “But we can’t expect these vulnerable families to know the way to go to court and start summary proceedings once they are closed,” said attorney Jelle Klaas.
How to proceed?
Defense for Children and the NJCM are disappointed in the court’s ruling. The organizations had hoped that families with children would no longer be allowed to be disconnected from the water, given their child and human rights. The organizations are considering appealing the ruling.
Read more about this case at this link.
