Posts
#CPConf2018: Risk of Future Emotional Harm – justified grounds to remove children?
On 15th September a group of parents, lawyers, social workers and academics met at the Conway Hall in London for the third Child Protection Conference, supported by The Transparency Project and sponsored by Bath Publishing. There was an audio recording of the day...
14-year-old instructs his own solicitor in care proceedings
The Times published a story on 13 September under the headline, ‘Judge lets 14-year-old boy choose his own lawyer’. The judgment is on BAILII here - Re Z (A Child: Care Proceedings: Separate Representation) [2018] EWFC B57. We don’t know why the Times has not...
Lord Chief Justice calls for more open justice
Judges should publish more judgments online, and they should engage more with the media, according to the Lord Chief Justice. "We cannot complain that the public does not understand what we do, and its importance, if we do not take steps to lift the veil a little and...
Correcting inaccuracy by the mainstream media in reporting of family court cases
Family Law publishes a regular column by The Transparency Project. This blog post originally appeared in the August 2018 issue, [2018] Fam Law 1062. As we noted in our June column, 'Press reporting on family courts' [2018] Fam Law 750, there seems little prospect...
Freedom versus responsibility when the Press report on care proceedings
On September 6th 2018 The Sun published an article 'They Stole my Baby' - Mum’s heartbreaking tale of how secret courts took her baby away forever – as we reveal children are being ripped from parents in record numbers. What follows is the usual mixture of...
The Muslim Foster Carer Case – the final chapter
Last autumn we covered the so-called 'muslim foster carer' case, over a number of blog posts (you can find those posts here). This week, just as we'd given up hope of ever finding out what happened to the little girl at the heart of the case, the judgment is out. Or,...
Government plans to overhaul divorce laws
A long awaited reform of the divorce laws in England and Wales now seems close to becoming a reality, after Buzzfeed News revealed on 7 September that "justice secretary David Gauke is set to announce a consultation on no-fault divorce in which he will call for the...
Legal Bloggers – Pilot Announced
We are very excited. After months of liaison with the Family Procedure Rules Committee our proposal to permit legal bloggers into family court hearings is going to be piloted. The pilot will launch on 1 October and run for 9 months until 30 June 2019, so it's no...
Plenty of fish, too little caviar
Burki v. Seventy Thirty Ltd, Seventy Thirty Ltd v. Burki [2018] EWHC 2151 (QB) A recent High Court judgment offers a vivid glimpse into the real-life world of “Wry Society”, a regular feature in the Financial Times How to Spend Itmagazine, which holds a mirror up to...
Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup
Correcting, clarifying or commenting on media reports of family court cases Explaining or commenting on published judgments of family court cases Highlighting other transparency news MEDIA (MIS)REPORTS OF FAMILY COURT CASES BBC News - In the last Roundup we flagged a...