Contempt of court – yet more confusion and inconsistency over naming of guilty party

by Paul M | Aug 1, 2023 | Comment, Court of Protection, Explanation

Yet again a judgment in a contempt of court case has revealed problems around transparency and open justice. The case is Esper v NHS North West London Integrated Care Board [2023] EWCOP 29; [2023] WLR(D) 300, and is a decision of Mr Justice Poole. This case has also...

Should a 14-year-old instruct his own solicitor? – new Court of Appeal judgment

by Julie Doughty | Jul 30, 2023 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

This lengthy judgment (82 paragraphs) from Peter Jackson LJ should prove invaluable as a summary of the law and guidance on children’s competence to instruct their own lawyers. It is also useful in considering communication directly between children and judges. The...

Re Z: A family court decision to share serious abuse findings with Social Work England (with guidance)

by Malvika Jaganmohan | Mar 12, 2023 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

Last month, there was a fair bit of media interest around a High Court battle before Mrs Justice Knowles involving a senior social worker who had been found by the family court to have perpetrated domestic abuse towards his ex-partner. HHJ Ahmed, the judge...

‘Somewhere in the history of this case we have lost our humanity’

by Julie Doughty | Mar 5, 2023 | Cases, Comment, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

This is an update on a case I wrote about in September last year – ‘Choosing the course which is less stressful to the child’. The hearing before Mrs Justive Lieven last summer concerned applications for care orders by Warwickshire County Council in...

Family Courts scrutinised by the press – but what do we think of the reporting so far?

by Lucy R | Feb 23, 2023 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Reporting Pilot

Nobody who has ever read a newspaper or visited twitter would be expecting new media coverage of the family court, made possible by the ‘reporting pilot’, to be in glowing terms. However, the pilot isn’t a PR exercise, and for transparency to mean anything, we have to...

Royal wills: unsealing the mystery

by Paul M | Feb 19, 2023 | Comment, Explanation, Transparency News

In a series of earlier posts we have discussed the transparency, or lack of it, in the way the courts deal with wills left by deceased members of the Royal Family. In the case of the late Queen Elizabeth II, her will was not even required to be proved by a grant of...