The best interests of the child : A study how the court take into account the child as an actor in access disputes.

The CRC is an ethical foundation documents to strengthen children's position in the family law process and ensure that both the child's needs and rights are met. According to article 12 all children have the right to participate in processes and decisions that affect them, where their opinions should be given weight in accordance to their age and maturity. Even to meet the child's best interests (article 3) should be the main target at each crucial decision on issues affecting children. The definition of the child's best changes in time and place and leads to individual assessments needs to be made based on the needs of each child, by their individual interests and situation. In practice it may also be deemed to be a dilemma to consider both articles, tension may arise when the child ́s will and the best interests of the child do not correspond. Based on theories of child's status as an actor or non-actor in the assessment through the different perspectives: care logic and legal logic, we want to understand how assessors in different cases of access account to the articles that determine their decisions. Our study has been conducted through a qualitative research with textual analysis of five Swedish cases from District Court and Court of Appeal from the years 2015-2016. The outcome of the study shows that two logics (care logic and legal logic) generates in the assessments of the child ́s best and that their decisions is depending on which one of those thats dominate. The results also shows that the children ́s will depends on its age and maturity which also determine the children ́s influence and status as actors or non-actors in the legal process of acces