Proposal to the Law Commission for Transparency Reform

by reporting watch team | Feb 28, 2021 | Comment, FCReportingWatch, Transparency News

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...

Rules are made to be broken…into chunks

by reporting watch team | Feb 18, 2021 | FCReportingWatch, Transparency News

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...

Local Authority and Children’s Guardian fail in appeal against judge’s refusal to support a plan of adoption for children aged 2 and 3: T and R (Refusal of Placement Order) [2021] EWCA Civ 71

by Sophie Smith Holland | Feb 15, 2021 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

This is a post by Sophie Smith-Holland. Sophie is a family law barrister at St John’s Chambers, Bristol. She tweets as @SSmithHolland. T & R involved an appeal against a decision to refuse to approve a plan of adoption in respect of two children, T...

Family Court Transparency Review – An Update

by Lucy R | Feb 10, 2021 | FCReportingWatch, Transparency News

Things have been quiet on this front since evidence was submitted in the spring of 2020. The week before last we became aware that the President and his panel were finally starting the oral evidence sessions, but they were due to start the very next day and they were...

PD12J & Scott Schedules – Rearranging a Spider’s web

by Guest Post | Jan 30, 2021 | Analysis, Cases, Comment, FCReportingWatch

This is a guest post from solicitor Jeremy Ford. Jeremy is a partner, mediator and children’s arbitrator at Cambridge Family Law Practice LLP. He tweets as @headofroy. It was originally published on LinkedIn. Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the family division,...

The Court of Appeal considers Domestic Abuse – Part 3

by Lucy R | Jan 29, 2021 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Notorious

This is part 3 of a series of posts about the four conjoined appeals. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. This post tackles the wider issues of principle that were considered in the course of the appeals, and at the end will provide some materials for further...