MAKING FAMILY JUSTICE CLEARER
LEGAL BLOGGING & OPEN REPORTING
Latest posts
Headlines from the latest Cafcass Open Board Meeting: the emergency protocol, domestic abuse, and young people’s views on transparency
At the latest Cafcass Open Board Meeting we asked about news that Cafcass are starting to trigger their prioritisation protocol and open allocation hubs for private law cases in some areas, and for an update on handling of domestic abuse cases. The Family Justice...
Domestic abuse: incorrect principles applied – successful appeal
This blog post is about the case of Re A (Domestic Abuse: Incorrect Principles applied) [2021] EWFC B30. First, the context: June 2020: The Ministry of Justice published the ‘Harm Report’, a 200-page document detailing criticisms of the way family courts minimised...
Evaluation of family court anonymisation guidance published
Last month Dr Julia Brophy, Marisol Smith with Jagbir Jhutti-Johal published an evaluation of the implementation of the President of the Family Division's 2018 guidance on anonymisation of judgments. That guidance was based upon earlier work by Dr Brophy which itself...
Day to day data on remote hearings in the family courts
HM Courts and Tribunals Service have recently published statistics about the number of hearings conducted remotely, ie by audio, video or on paper, compared with physical in-person hearings, over the course of the coronavirus lockdown. The statistics cover civil and...
Family courts, attachment theory, and discharging care orders
Three years ago, eyebrows were raised when Mr Justice Mostyn stated in the case of GM v Carmarthenshire County Council & Anor [2018] EWFC 36 that use of attachment theory by a social worker was not ‘expert’ evidence and that he didn't need a social worker to give...
Misdiagnosis case update
This judgment, Cardiff City Council v A Mother & Ors [2021] EWFC 44, relates to the case that Emily Dugan wrote about in the Sunday Times and that we wrote about here. This judgment appears to be the only one given by HHJ Jonathan Furness that has ever been...
Get our posts in your inbox
If you would like to be automatically notified of new posts on this site through our weekly email, and sent information from time to time about the work of The Transparency Project or our events, please join our mailing list.
The Group
The people behind this site.
We’re transparent, you know!






