To name or not to name – that is the question

by Lucy R | May 12, 2020 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

We noticed two cases in which judgments were published yesterday, the very day that the President’s Transparency Review call for evidence closed – each deals with the question of whether a local authority who had brought care proceedings should be named, and...

Transparency Review Call For Evidence Closes – Our Response

by Lucy R | May 11, 2020 | Consultations, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Transparency News

The President of the Family Division’s Transparency Review Panel put out a call for evidence in the early months of the year, before Covid-19 darkened our doors. Today the several-times-extended deadline for that call for evidence fell due. The Transparency...

Transgender man loses appeal and remains recognised as ‘mother’ on child’s birth certificate

by Emma Nottingham | May 10, 2020 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

This case concerns an appeal by Alfred McConnell (previously anonymised as TT in the first instance decision). Mr McConnell was born female but around 10 years ago, at the age of 22, transitioned to become male, undergoing testosterone treatment and a double...

The magic soup stone strikes again (more new authorities about remote hearings)

by Lucy R | May 7, 2020 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

Following on from our Alphabet Soup post about Re A and Re B (and our earlier post about Re P), there are two new remote hearing related judgments out : A Local Authority v Mother & Ors [2020] EWHC 1086 (Fam) and Re Q [2020] EWHC 1109 (Fam). As with A and B,...

When Remote Justice Works

by Guest Post | May 4, 2020 | Cases, Court of Protection, Explanation, FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Trends

This is a guest post by Celia Kitzinger, co-director of the Coma and Disorders of Consciousness Research Centre and Honorary Professor, Cardiff University School of Law and Politics. She tweets as @KitzingerCelia During the current public health emergency,...

Alphabet Soup

by Lucy R | May 4, 2020 | Analysis, Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

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...