Posts
Evaluation of the Pathfinder Pilot in Private Law – published
This announcement appeared quietly on the Ministry of Justice website on 25 March - Private Law Pathfinder Pilot: process evaluation and financial analysis This report provides the findings of the process evaluation and exploratory financial analysis of the...
Are young people losing their freedom because of Deprivation of Liberty Orders?
This is a guest post by Victoria Butler Cole KC. Victoria is a barrister at 39 Essex and you can find her on Bluesky @torbc.bsky.social. The BBC recently published an article about the experiences of a young woman who had spent time in a range of placements including...
Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup: February-March 2025
Welcome to the Roundup, where we correct, clarify and comment on media reports of family law, explain and comment on published family court judgments, and highlight other transparency news. MEDIA COVERAGE OF FAMILY LAW, TRANSPARENCY etc The BBC reported on The...
Access to Family Court documents under the open justice principle
Journalists and legal bloggers (reporters) are normally allowed to see certain types of documents under the Reporting Provisions that came in this year, and earlier during the Reporting Pilot. Sometimes reporters ask to see other relevant documents, and there’s a...
Court of Appeal to decide on ‘necessity’ for intermediaries
We wrote last year about a hearing I attended in Cardiff Family Court about the necessity for an intermediary to assist a father in a fact-finding hearing. We were therefore interested to see recently listed an appeal against a decision made by a judge in a different...
Does a reporter have to be in court to read confidential documents?
Dale Vince, described on Wikipedia as ‘a British Green energy industrialist, former New Age traveller’ attracts a good deal of publicity whether it’s his political donations, owning a ‘green’ football team, or taking libel actions against publishers who wrongly...
The Transparency and Open Justice Board – consultation on key objectives
In April last year, the Lady Chief Justice set up a new Transparency and Open Justice Board, chaired by Mr Justice Nicklin. It aims to lead and coordinate the promotion of transparency and open justice across the courts and tribunals of England & Wales and support...
Guidance on citation of judgments as ‘authorities’
Not all judgments are created equal Some, by more senior judges or courts (essentially High Court judges or above), may be regarded as primary or binding ‘authority’ for the propositions of law which they contain. They lay down the law, which lesser courts and judges...
ASSISTED DYING : WHAT ROLE FOR THE TRIBUNAL? THOUGHTS ON THE LATEST PROPOSALS
This is a guest post by Sir James Munby, and it follows on from earlier posts about the proposed Assisted Dying reforms here, here and here. In Assisted Dying: What Role for the Judge? More Thoughts, published on the Transparency Project website on 6 December 2024,...
Re XY Twins – another family court judgment names an individual to warn parents
Last week, we wrote on a family court judgment about children that had been published on TNA and BAILII naming an individual party, which we said almost never happened. That’s because of the strict privacy and anonymity rules intended to protect children who are...