A long and winding road: The Child Justice Bill, civil society and advocacy

Abstract

This article charts the journey of civil society's engagement with the Child Justice Bill. The story begins with activism in the early 1980s, and tracks the reform efforts through various phases. The Bill was rewritten in Parliament in 2003, and it then fell off the parliamentary agenda. When it re-surfaced at Parliament in 2008 civil society lobbied hard for changes that would bring the Bill closer to the original intentions. An account is given of the gains and losses, and, all in all, th