Posts
OUR TREATMENT OF THE VULNERABLE – CHALLENGES FOR THE FAMILY JUSTICE SYSTEM
This is the text of a paper by Sir James Munby (lately President of the Family Division) delivered at the Royal Holloway University of London Symposium : ‘Inequality and Rights – Contemporary Challenges in the Child Protection and Family Justice Systems before and...
Should a journalist be able to see all the court papers behind a flawed decision that a child should be adopted? Marshalling the arguments
Last week the Court of Appeal heard journalist Melanie Newman’s appeal against an order against disclosure of the court papers behind a flawed decision that a young child should be adopted (subsequently overturned by the Court of Appeal with the child going home). I...
The end of an unhappy marriage – annulment and non-consummation
This is a guest post by Kathryn Cassells. Kathryn is an associate solicitor at Vaitilingam Kay. She tweets as @MasonCassells THIS POST WAS UPDATED ON 2 JUNE 2023 AS MARKED. An explanation of the updates is at the foot of the post. On 16 February 2021, the press...
Deaf parents in care proceedings: Good practice in and out of court
This is a post by regular contributor, Abigail Bond. Abigail is a barrister at St John’s Chambers, Bristol who specialises in Children Law (mainly care proceedings), and Court of Protection health and welfare matters. She tweets as @AbigailBond1. Re A &...
M (A Child): Live streaming from the Court of Appeal on Thursday 4th March – Should a journalist be able to see the court documents behind a flawed decision that a child needed adoption?
This is a short blog to introduce the people and issues, and explain the lead up, ahead of the live-streamed appeal in M (A Child) tomorrow. It aims to give non lawyers a bit of orientation and some links when tuning in to the court of appeal proceedings. The listing...
Transparency Review : Oral Evidence Sessions Underway
As reported last month, oral evidence sessions are now underway as part of the President of the Family Division's Transparency Review. See our earlier post here : http://www.transparencyproject.org.uk/family-court-transparency-review-an-update/ Transparency Project...
Proposal to the Law Commission for Transparency Reform
This is the text of a proposal submitted to the Law Commission in February 2021, by The Right Honourable Sir James Munby (President of the Family Division of the High Court from 2013-2018), His Honour Clifford Bellamy (Retired Family Circuit Judge, Patron of The...
The PPE procurement case: transparency missed in both politics and law
Last week the High Court made a widely publicised decision declaring that a government minister and his department had acted unlawfully in relation to the award of PPE procurement contracts in the early weeks of the pandemic. The case is called R (Good Law Project and...
Rules are made to be broken…into chunks
This month the powers that be have decided to move the Family Procedure Rules (FPRs) from their longstanding home at justice.gov.uk to the giant gov.uk website. Whilst the justice pages were not perfect they were easy enough to locate from the justice home page and...
Privatisation of children’s services is bad for children and bad for taxpayers
This is a guest post by Martin Barrow, journalist and local authority foster carer. Martin tweets as @MartinBarrow When the Care Review was formally announced in January, one of the first actions of its chair, Josh MacAlister, was to ask the Competition and...