Age or maturity? African children’s right to participate in medical decision-making processes

Abstract

This article advocates an approach to children’s participation in medical decision-making processes guided by the rationality of the best interests’ principle, a child’s evolving capacity and a child’s age. Using a human rights-based approach, rooted in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Children’s Charter, it seeks to elucidate the contested three-way partnership between the child, its parent(s) and the assigned physician(s), which plays out in relation to most medical procedures involving children. In analysing legislation and case law, the article further aims to clarify the complex relationship between age and maturity in child participation; to facilitate a child’s involvement in the three-way partnership; and to suggest the statutory recognition of an age indicator in domestic African law in relation to medical procedures.