by Lucy R | Jan 24, 2015 | Project
We’ve taken the first steps towards becoming a real grown up project. This week our constitution was signed and trustees appointed (Lucy Reed, Sarah Phillimore and Julie Doughty) and our documents have gone off to the Charity Commission to be processed so that...
by Lucy R | Jan 24, 2015 | Cases, Explanation
Lucy Reed has blogged about a recent case where a person committed to prison for contempt of court was initially anonymous due to a reporting restriction order made by a Family Division Judge. The order has now been varied. You can read Lucy’s blog post on Pink...
by Sarah P | Jan 22, 2015 | Comment
‘If I wait for evidence it can be too late’ – when dramatic licence goes too far I watched the first half of Silent Witness: Protection on Wednesday via iplayer and smiled indulgently at some of the more anguished twitter responses to its...
by Paul M | Jan 15, 2015 | Cases, Comment, Explanation
There is an assumption in some parts of the media that the Family Courts are deliberately operating in a secretive manner in order to cover up the sinister conduct of social workers, doctors, and local authorities, and that is why hearings are held in private (ie in...
by Julie Doughty | Jan 13, 2015 | Transparency News
Community Care has published this story about social workers’ fears of being named in the media. This reminds us that it’s not just children who worry about this prospect, but also professionals. The article is sponsored by Unison, the trade union, on behalf of their...
by Lucy R | Jan 7, 2015 | Analysis, Cases, Comment, Project
As its very new, we’re still feeling our way through how we will run this project – and we have recently had to deal with the thorny issue of what the limits are on comments about individual cases. We have an “Editorial Policy” here, which sets...
by Paul M | Jan 4, 2015 | Transparency News
On 1 January The Times published a piece under the headline “Judge attacked over bid to hold family cases in public” (£). Frances Gibb, legal editor, reported that Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, “could be forced to delay or radically rethink moves...
by Julie Doughty | Jan 4, 2015 | Resources
Family_Policy_Briefing_5 Here is a link to a policy briefing written in 2009 by Julia Brophy and Ceridwen Roberts (University of Oxford) which compares the law relating to access to family courts in a number of jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and...
by Julie Doughty | Jan 2, 2015 | Transparency News
Overall, the response is negative about any further publicity measures being introduced. Sources used are the experiences and views of Resolution members and the recent Brophy et al report. Resolution makes strong arguments for research and evaluations to be...
by Lucy R | Jan 1, 2015 | Transparency News
The Association of Lawyers for Children’s response to the President of the Family Division’s consultation on Transparency can be found here. Below is a summary of their response : ALC relies upon the research conducted by Julia Brophy and colleagues,...
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