Posts
Alphabet Soup
Although the remote family justice soup has of late been a right old 'pea souper', with some difficult to digest lumps of guidance giving us all a tummy ache, some new letters have floated to the top of family justice broth this week. Re A and Re B are judgments from...
The Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, and a little bit of history.
Reflecting on where you have been is a useful exercise. I don’t mean that in the LinkedIn sense: I am not about to start posting pictures of hikers atop a mountain with the caption ‘INSPIRATION’, nor am I about to share how I woke up at 4am to drink a green tea carrot...
UPDATE: Z (A Child: committal proceeding) – a reminder that no one can be committed to prison without being named publicly
I wrote a piece for the blog back in March 2020 about the case of Z (A Child: committal proceeding) [2020] EWFC B5 (24 January 2020). It concerned a private children law matter where the father had tampered with a drug testing report - which would have shown that he...
Justice on the altar
A couple of weeks back, the President of the Family Division quite sensibly decided that he needed to take stock of how things were working out, now that the Family Court is conducting many hearings by remote means, whether by phone or video. To that end the Family...
Publication and correction of judgments – official and unofficial sources
Who is responsible for publishing the official approved version of judgments of the courts? Where should we look to find the latest, in some cases corrected, version of a court judgment? These are not new questions, but the sudden swerve to virtual justice has thrown...
Re Z – transparency and participation in the Court of Protection
A judgment published this week on BAILII, Re Z, also, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v Z (by her litigation friend, the Official Solicitor) [2020] EWCOP 20 , is notable on two counts. First, that the case is described by the judge, Knowles J, as...
Remote hearings and inclusive justice
How effectively are people with a cognitive impairment, mental health condition and/or neuro-diverse condition able to participate in proceedings in the justice system, particularly when they engage with that system via video or telephone link? That is the focus of an...
![P (A Child: Remote Hearing) (Rev 3) [2020] EWFC 32: When is remote justice not justice?](https://transparencyproject.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/PFD-Sir-Andrew-McFarlane-300x291-1.jpg)
P (A Child: Remote Hearing) (Rev 3) [2020] EWFC 32: When is remote justice not justice?
Re P (A Child: Remote Hearing) (Rev 3) [2020] EWFC 32 is a decision of the President of the Family Division and Head of Family Justice, Sir Andrew McFarlane, about whether or not a 15 day trial should go ahead remotely. The trial was set down within care proceedings...
Transparency Project News February 2020
This blog post originally appeared as the Transparency Project’s monthly column in Family Law for February 2020 at Family [2020] Fam Law 265. Transparency Templates The President has published some new 'Transparency Templates', which are draft orders for use in High...
Socially distanced courts for the digitally excluded
We have heard a lot about how the courts are responding to the coronavirus pandemic by conducting hearings online instead of in a physical court room. But while hearings by Skype and Zoom enable participants to maintain social distancing and avoid the risks of...