We’ve just spotted that in May a Conservative MP, Robert Halfon posed this written question in the House of Commons :
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to improve transparency in the Family Court process.
Last week, Justice Minister Chris Philp answered that question. Unfortunately, he got the answer wrong, so we thought we’d provide the correct answers. The italics are the original answer in full. The red text is our correction.
Ensuring that decisions made in family proceedings are open and transparent to the public is something to which this Government has given careful consideration. We recognise that there is a delicate balance to be struck between ensuring that family proceedings are open and transparent to ensure adequate public scrutiny and the principle of public justice, whilst also ensuring that the we protect the privacy of vulnerable children and families who are party to such proceedings.
This Government has taken several steps to increase transparency in family proceedings where appropriate. This has included continuing to support a pilot which allows accredited representatives of media outlets to have access to proceedings. x WRONG. Court rules have permitted accredited media representatives to attend most hearings since 2009. There is no pilot concerning media representatives. The pilot allows legal bloggers access to proceedings with permission of the presiding judge. x YES, this pilot does exist (under Practice Direction 36J), but it is not a pilot about media representatives – because a legal blogger isn’t an accredited media representative – they are lawyers not journalists. It also allows the blogger to write about their experiences at court but requires that names and personal information are kept anonymous. X WRONG! The pilot doesn’t permit any more reporting than is usual – both legal bloggers and media representatives have to ask for permission to write about cases concerning children, even on an anonymised basis because automatic reporting restrictions prohibit publication of information from this sort of private hearing.
We have also allowed the livestreaming of SOME Court of Appeal family proceedings. This became a permanent arrangement in June 2020 X NOT QUITE : IN FACT LIVESTREAMING OF FAMILY APPEALS BEGAN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN JUNE 2020, THOUGH CIVIL APPEALS HAVE BEEN LIVESTREAMED FOR LONGER – SEE HERE through the Live Streaming Court of Appeal SI 2020 and allows anyone to view a SELECT FEW Court of Appeal family case on the internet (again, whilst protecting the anonymity of the parties involved).
Further recommendations for increasing transparency will be carefully considered to ensure that the children and families who use the family courts continue to be protected, whilst also ensuring adequate scrutiny is given to the family courts.
It’s encouraging to hear that the Government is supportive of an increase in transparency in family proceedings, but we’re not filled with an enormous amount of confidence about this if the Minister in question has been briefed in such inaccurate terms as to completely misdescribe the pilot he purports to support, and so as to suggest that legal bloggers may write about family cases without court permission – advice which if followed could result in a contempt of court. Presumably such will be the shock at learning that journalists and bloggers have to seek permission to report anything of family hearings they attend, that the minister will get straight onto the task of remedying this… We aren’t holding our breath.
We have alerted the Minister to the errors and we hope that the record will be formally corrected in due course.
Pic courtesy of Jeremy Segrott on Flickr (Creative commons licence) – thanks!
We have a small favour to ask!
The Transparency Project is a registered charity in England & Wales run largely by volunteers who also have full-time jobs. We’re working hard to secure extra funding so that we can keep making family justice clearer for all who use the court and work within it.
Our legal bloggers take time out at their own expense to attend courts and to write up hearings.
We’d be really grateful if you were able to help us by making a small one-off (or regular!) donation through our Just Giving page.
Thanks for reading!
You couldn’t make this **** up. In the meantime have you heard about the primary school child now on referral to a third party agency because of their disassociative disorder caused by years of enforced contact with an abusive father, ordered by FC ‘in the best interests of’ this child? You couldn’t make this **** up. But then, you don’t need to. It’s already established fact. How many more years? No wonder self harm and mental health problems are rising in primary school children.
Rock on hiding behind the privacy law FJS, it’s what you do best, after all, it’s not YOU being abused by the process now is it? “In the best interests….” of whom? Errr… speak up, didn’t quite hear you.. was that ‘the child’ you muttered under your breath? Errr.. don’t think so Me’Lud. Methinks your attempts at administering justice are neither underpinned nor upheld by that presumed bastion of justice ‘the truth’. Because you’d have to live that child’s life to know their truth, and how many of you do that?
When you look at your child or grandchild, remember the hundreds of thousands of UK children living in actual physical dread and terrifying fear of that next weekend/weekday contact session. And then examine your part in that.
Those of us who campaign for evidential standards in FC to be ’beyond reasonable doubt’, and for those ‘experts’ committing perjury to be held legally accountable, can assure you, that until they are, it is beyond all doubt that the numbers of children suffering continuing … and that means actually ongoing day by day…. harm, and presenting with an increasing range of psychological and physical health problems, BECAUSE they are subject to enforced FC ordered contact will continue to rise.
How do YOU live with that?
Does anyone even care enough to be monitoring the stats of children presenting with health problems to see how many are/have been subject to enforced contact orders. Don’t think so. After all, they’re only kids. And without a voice. Too young to rock your boats.
The saddest thing is, that it is not the ‘experts’ who are slowly changing the system. After all, why should they. As long as their salary and final salary pension pot are protected, there’s no incentive to now is there? It is the victims. he victims doing the work, because what they’ve been through was so horrendous that they cannot bear to let other children go through it without doing their utmost to stamp FJS injustices out. Victims becoming lawyers themselves. Even becoming academics presenting FJS PhD research to the Law Society.
You can only silence victims and their families for a maximum of 18 years. That’s when our fightback starts in ernest. In the meantime, although it may be convenient for you to turn your backs and move onto the next listed case, we are not just a number. We are snapping at your heels and our breath is hot on your necks. We WILL have accountabilty. And, sooner rather than later. Because we care.
#bodycamsonSWs #punishSWperjury #hiddenepidemicofharm #beyondreasonabledoubt