by Paul M | Mar 24, 2023 | Comment, Court of Protection, Transparency News
The Court of Protection will, on rare occasions, not only hear a case in private but do so without telling one of the parties or their representatives, even after it’s happened. This is known as a ‘closed’ hearing. The court has power to do so under the Court of...
by Lucy R | Mar 21, 2023 | Cases, Comment, Legal blogging, Reporting Pilot
On 2 February 2023, I attended the Family Court in Cardiff, aiming to report on cases under the newly launched Reporting Pilot. I identified one case on the court list which I was able both to attend and report. It turned out to be a hearing in the FDAC – the Family...
by reporting watch team | Mar 18, 2023 | FCReportingWatch, Legal blogging, Reporting Pilot, Transparency News
On 2nd February 2023, we ran training for prospective legal bloggers interested in taking part in the Transparency Reporting Pilot. During that training, we received some thoughtful questions which we thought helpful to condense into one blog post, as well as some...
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...
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...
by Jack Harrison | Mar 2, 2023 | Analysis, Cases, FCReportingWatch
Is removing a mobile phone and access to social media a deprivation of a child’s liberty, or just something that a parent should be entitled to do? Mr Justice Macdonald gives us his answer in Manchester City Council v. P (Refusal of restrictions on mobile phone)...
by Paul M | Mar 2, 2023 | Comment, Court of Protection, Legal blogging, Reporting Pilot, Transparency News
With the recent launch of the Transparency Reporting Pilot in the family courts, there may be a risk of confusion over some of the terminology, such as “Transparency Orders”, already used in the Court of Protection, and misunderstanding over the role of “legal...
by Judith Townend | Feb 24, 2023 | Comment, Events, Transparency News
“Our justice system is years behind other public services like health and education in collecting and using data to understand performance and impact” says Natalie Byrom, director of research at the Legal Education Foundation (TLEF). “We need a fundamental shift in...
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...
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...
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