Posts
How transparent can we be?
As its very new, we're still feeling our way through how we will run this project - and we have recently had to deal with the thorny issue of what the limits are on comments about individual cases. We have an "Editorial Policy" here, which sets out that we will and...
Other news on media and children’s privacy
More news on campaigning for children's privacy, as the Weller case goes to the Supreme Court. Hannah Weller has started a campaign to stop the media publishing photographs of children without parents' consent. I thought JK Rowling had already established this....
Is there a “wall of opposition” to greater transparency in family courts?
On 1 January The Times published a piece under the headline “Judge attacked over bid to hold family cases in public” (£). Frances Gibb, legal editor, reported that Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, “could be forced to delay or radically rethink moves...
Summary of Resolution response
Overall, the response is negative about any further publicity measures being introduced. Sources used are the experiences and views of Resolution members and the recent Brophy et al report. Resolution makes strong arguments for research and evaluations to be...
Summary of ALC Transparency Consultation Response
The Association of Lawyers for Children's response to the President of the Family Division's consultation on Transparency can be found here. Below is a summary of their response : ALC relies upon the research conducted by Julia Brophy and colleagues, commissioned by...
Transparency Consultation – Responses Gathered
We have published our own response to the President's Aug 14 consultation regarding Transparency here. Here are the other ones we've found. Association of Lawyers for Children response (our summary here) Resolution response (our summary here) Family Law Bar...
Project News
In December we held a meeting of the project group via video link and as a result you'll now see that we have a number of new contributors to the blog, listed here. Welcome to David Burrows, Alice Twaite, David Chaplin and Jerry Lonsdale. Over the next little while...
Children identified – a deterrent to parents?
This article from the Press Gazette explains why the judge thought it right to identify the members of this family, who were involved in an international abduction case (or 'tug of love' in media-speak) What do people think? (I've yet to see how it was reported in the...
The recent debate about opening up the Family Courts
Beyond all ideas of right and wrong there is a field - I will meet you there. Rumi On 11th November 2014 the Family Justice Council held its 8th Annual Debate and panel discussion at Westminster Central Hall. The topic for discussion was transparency. The...
Family proceedings: the ‘open court principle’
Amongst family judges it has become quite the rage to open up your court and welcome in – well, probably a few lonely souls and a couple of local journalists, limited to those cases where a parent has been sounding off on Facebook or trying to take a child from...