LVU och påtaglig risk - en studie av riskrekvisitets tillämpning

Sammanfattning: In order to take a child into custody without the consent of the child or its parents it is necessary that there are deficiencies in the child’s home environment or in his or her behaviour. In addition, there also has to be a significant risk that the child’s health and development will be harmed. The term significant risk has been in use since the law was renewed in 1990 when it replaced the old terms “danger” and “severe danger”. Those terms had been criticized for being obscure, leading to an uncertainty regarding when the law was applicable. However, the term significant risk is not as clear as would be desired leading to a risk that the courts might still be uncertain about how the term is supposed to be used. An empirical investigation shows that the administrative courts sometimes apply the term poorly, for instance the word “significant” is not always even mentioned and the reasons behind the courts’ usage of the term are not always well explained. The investigation includes eighty judgments from four administrative courts and the poor explanations can be found in judgments from all of the courts. This causes a risk for arbitrariness and a lack of legal security in the courts’ judgments.