Posts
Reporting restrictions and accountability in the family courts
Family Law publishes a regular column by The Transparency Project. This blog post originally appeared in the July 2018 issue, [2018] Fam Law 917. A sequence of lectures delivered about – or touching upon the subject of – transparency have been delivered in recent...
‘Oh I’m sorry, did I forget to mention you don’t have to agree to this?’ When social workers forget that interventions under ‘Child in Need’ are voluntary
The author of this post is a child protection social worker, who writes under a pseudonym, including in the Guardian. There has been significant press coverage of the work of child protection social workers over the last few months. At times I have found this coverage...
‘Habitual Residence’ – sloppy explanations of the law about child abduction
We have been alerted to some less than perfect summaries of the law around international child abduction by the BBC recently. When a child is abducted to a foreign country away from their other parent, two things are a given: emotions will be running high and the law...
Final Presidential words on transparency
Sir James Munby, who retired as President of the Family Division at the end of July, has attracted a good deal of media attention over the years and has been innovative and enthusiastic about constructively engaging with the media. He was vocal as early as 2013 (in a...
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 Our posts this week have been geared to...
Transparency Project – some big news!
We're recruiting! We're really pleased to announced that The Transparency Project have been awarded a further consolidation grant from the Legal Education Foundation, and we will shortly be launching the recruitment process for a new full time post of Project...
Void, Valid and Very Confusing – what is the status of Sharia Marriages in the UK?
The High Court here in London has recently considered the status of an islamic marriage, that did not comply with all the usual formalities required in England & Wales. It has generated a lot of confused and confusing headlines - the marriage has been reported as...
Judge takes over father’s cross-examination in case involving rape allegations – and it ends up being unfair on everyone involved
Mr Justice Hayden is a High Court Judge who has been very outspoken about the potential for the court process to be abusive of those who are already victims of domestic abuse. In a case called Re A (a minor) (fact finding; unrepresented party) [2017] EWHC 1195 (Fam),...
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 We've not commented on mainstream press...
Just how close was 3-year-old ‘AJS’ to being adopted because of the unlawful immigration detention of her father?
Last week BBC News and the Guardian reported the important public interest story of a father's unlawful immigration detention, that left his three-year-old unnecessarily in care and at risk of a plan for adoption, despite the family court declaring they should be...