The legal system is built on principles meant to protect the most vulnerable, including minors. Yet, the concept of legal fiction—where the law assumes something to be true regardless of factual reality—often complicates this protection. From custody battles to criminal responsibility, legal fictions shape how minors interact with the justice system, sometimes at the expense of their rights.
Legal fiction is a tool courts use to achieve fairness or efficiency when strict adherence to facts would create injustice. For example, corporations are treated as "persons" under the law, even though they are not human. When applied to minors, legal fictions can both help and harm.
One of the most pervasive legal fictions is the age of majority. The law assumes that all individuals under 18 (in most jurisdictions) lack the capacity to make certain decisions. While this protects minors from exploitation, it also strips them of autonomy in cases where they may be fully capable of understanding consequences.
In some countries, minors as young as 10 can be tried as adults for serious crimes—a legal fiction that assumes they possess adult reasoning. Meanwhile, the same child may be denied the right to consent to medical treatment without parental approval.
Family courts often rely on the legal fiction that parents always act in their child’s "best interests." While this standard is well-intentioned, it ignores cases where parents may be unfit but retain custody due to systemic biases. For example, courts may favor biological parents over foster or adoptive ones, even when evidence suggests otherwise.
Emancipation allows minors to gain legal independence before turning 18. However, the process is fraught with legal fictions. Courts may assume that a minor seeking emancipation is "mature enough" to live independently, yet deny them basic rights like signing a lease or accessing public benefits without additional hurdles.
The U.S. and other countries frequently use legal fiction to prosecute minors as adults, arguing that certain crimes demonstrate "adult-like" behavior. Yet neuroscience confirms that adolescent brains lack full impulse control. This contradiction—treating minors as adults in court while denying them adult privileges—highlights systemic hypocrisy.
Zero-tolerance policies in schools rely on the fiction that harsh discipline (e.g., suspensions for minor infractions) promotes safety. In reality, these policies disproportionately target marginalized minors, funneling them into the criminal justice system for behavior that would be ignored in adults.
Many platforms require parental consent for minors under 13 (per COPPA in the U.S.). Yet this legal fiction assumes parents understand or care about data privacy. In practice, minors bypass restrictions easily, while companies exploit loopholes to harvest data from underage users.
Courts often defer to schools under the fiction that administrators act in loco parentis (in place of parents). This has led to censorship of student protests, like punishing minors for social media posts made off-campus. The legal fiction here? That schools have unlimited authority to restrict speech "for safety."
Some U.S. states require minors to notify parents before obtaining an abortion, with judicial bypass as an alternative. The fiction? That judges can objectively determine if a minor is "mature enough" to decide—while ignoring that forced parental involvement may endanger abuse victims.
In many places, minors need parental consent for birth control, despite evidence that confidential access reduces teen pregnancies. The legal fiction assumes parents will always support their child’s health, even when cultural or religious beliefs conflict.
International laws often treat child labor as uniformly harmful. Yet in some economies, minors work to support families. Legal fictions like "all work is exploitative" ignore nuanced realities, leaving minors without protections in informal sectors.
Unaccompanied minor refugees are often assigned state guardians, with the fiction that these guardians prioritize the child’s welfare. In reality, bureaucratic delays leave many in detention or unsafe housing.
To better protect minors, legal systems must:
- Acknowledge nuance: Not all minors are equally vulnerable or mature.
- Increase participation: Allow minors to advocate for their rights in court.
- Update digital laws: Hold corporations accountable for exploiting minors online.
Legal fictions won’t disappear, but their application must evolve—because real children’s lives are at stake.
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Author: Legally Blonde Cast
Link: https://legallyblondecast.github.io/blog/how-legal-fiction-affects-the-rights-of-minors.htm
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