Tag Archives: Transparency

Transparency as a way to correct a false narrative

Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum v Princess Haya [2022] EWFC 16

This is an interesting case. Although it is clearly ‘highly unusual’ for the family courts to find themselves dealing with foreign princes this case represents further exploration of how an individual’s wish to correct a false narrative can be used to argue against the default position that publicity is the exception in family cases. It also demonstrates that although the legal context for determining ‘family publication’ cases is now settled and uncontroversial, the specific facts of each case are going to continue to require detailed examination.

On 9^th March the President of the Family Division handed down judgment in this case. The question for the court was whether the final welfare judgment of December 2021 should be published. This concerned the conclusion of long running wardships proceedings involving the parties two children aged 14 and 10. A total of 15 substantive judgments had already been published, with great media attention given that this case was ‘highly unusual’, involving the children of internationally known parents, one of whom is the Head of Government of a ‘prominent and powerful State’.

The President decided that the full judgment should be published, with some redaction. The key issue here was the publication of a welfare judgment concerning two clearly identified and publicly known children. Therefore the principles and themes developed in the recent Transparency Review did not have any direct resonance to the present unusual circumstances. The court had to find a ’bespoke’ solution by considering the particular facts and the individual needs of the two children balanced against the now firmly – and rightly – entrenched position in favour of anonymity for children in family proceedings.

Initially, the mother argued that the welfare judgment, in common with each preceeding judgment, should be published in full. The father and Children’s Guardian preferred publication to be restricted to a summary of the key elements of the decision. All agreed that in light of the degree of publicity already given to these proceedings, at least some form of summary of the welfare decision should be published.

Following submissions in February 2022 the Children’s Guardian changed her position in light of a further statement from the mother and meeting with the children. The father did not actively oppose the Guardian’s revised position to publish a full judgment with redactions but did urge the court to consider that both the children’s and the public interest was better served by the publication of a ‘coherent and accessible summary’.

The President found this a difficult decision. He had not written the welfare judgment with a view to future publication but rather to reflect the need to express his concluded views frankly and in detail so that the parents and in due course the children, could understand the court’s reasoning. He noted that it was ‘highly unusual’ for the court to publish a welfare judgment when the identity of the children was fully and widely known and that none of the legal teams had been able to identify any such previous publication in such circumstances. This issue took on even greater significance knowing that the family are public figures in their own right in Dubai and elsewhere.

The parties sought to rely upon the recent transparency review ‘Confidence and Confidentiality: Transparency in the Family Courts’ 29^th October 2021 but the President was clear that this Report was ‘wholly irrelevant’ to the issue that currently fell for determination. The Report was clear that greater openness in Family Court Proceedings is not to be at the expense of the children and family concerned. In the unusual circumstances of the present case, the President was required to provide a ‘bespoke’ solution, informed by the specific facts of the case and the needs of the children.

The overall legal context to determine publication of judgments in family cases was held to now be well settled and not controversial, relying on the need to strike a balance between competing ECHR rights and the statutory limits on identifying children. This case did not fit the ‘paradigm’ of a publicity application which usually focuses on Article 10 rights to free expression. Here the arguments in support of publication were geared towards the rights of the children and their mother to have their ‘story’ accurately available for public scrutiny to avoid the father being able to promote a false narrative. In particular, as the father was not being afforded direct contact with the children and his exercise of parental responsibility had been limited, it was important that third parties knew not to share information with him about the children that might put them at risk. The mother noted that the father had already been attempting to push a false narrative via social media that he had been reunited with his son.

The President noted that the Court of Appeal had recently in Griffiths v Tickle [2021] EWCA Civ 1882 upheld a decision to publish findings of fact against Mr Griffiths, in part upon the established right of an individual to ‘tell their story’. The Children’s Guardian in this case had also concluded that publication was in the welfare interests of the child.

In the present case the Children’s Guardian found the decision was ‘finely balanced’ but had decided in favour of publication on the basis of the wishes and feelings of the children and the mother’s own views. The court gave considerable weight to the mother’s statement, which was not challenged. This had to be balanced against the firmly entrenched default position in favour of confidentiality. Little weight was placed on the fact that previous judgments had been published; the welfare judgment was in a separate category and requires a bespoke evaluation.

Transparency – where now?

This is a post by Sarah Phillimore. TL:DR – there is clearly a need for a shift in culture and an attempt to better balance the need for children’s privacy against the need for public trust and confidence in the system. This shift will only occur however if is properly resourced – simple exhortations to do better will achieve nothing. We will also need to keep an eye out for the operation of the Law of Unintended Consequences, and the likely satellite litigation that will follow attempts to withhold certain documents from journalists.

On 28th October 2021 the President of the Family Division released the review of progress of increased transparency in the family justice system; Confidence and Confidentiality: Transparency in the Family Courts in the Family Courts, noting that the pace of change to date had been ‘glacial’, owing in part to the tensions between two fundamental principles

…the need to enhance public confidence in the Family Court and, on the other, the need to maintain confidentiality by safeguarding the privacy of those who turn to the court for protection or for the resolution of intimate disputes.

A quick google of the title brings the first result, depressingly, a very similar named Government paper from 2006 which supports the President’s disappointment with the pace of change. We seem to have all been agreeing for decades that our current methods of wrangling the tension between these two principles are failing, and that this risks a serious impact on public trust and confidence in the system. So what now? Is anything actually going to change this time?

The President is clear that things must change and he will take responsibility for making this change. He sets out at para 5 why this is an important issue – the caseload of the FJS is immense – 224,902 cases in 2020 alone. So a lot of people have a direct interest in knowing how judges exercise their discretion in these cases. ‘Open Justice’ is also ‘a fundamental constitutional imperative’. Without public scrutiny, how are judges held to account for the decisions they make?

But of course the arguments against increased publicity are also strong and well known; primarily the impact on children who may not want the intimate and distressing details of their family life to be public knowledge.

A current stumbling block is section 12 the Administration of Justice Act 1960, which I have written about here. This is poorly understood legislation which has undoubtedly had a chilling impact on what may or may not be discussed about cases in the family courts. So even though the rules were changed to allow accredited media representatives and legal bloggers to attend private Family Court hearing as of right (r 27.11), they are still covered by AJA 1960, s 12 which prevents publication of information relating to proceedings if they concern children – thus removing much of the point of being there at all.

The reporting that IS done is often based on ‘anonymous accounts of negative experiences’ to which the system cannot respond, leading to (para 27):

thoroughly unsatisfactory state of affairs, with the drip-drip of concerning stories, that are neither answered nor explained by publication of a judgment, inevitably eroding public confidence in the Family justice system.

The President states that the way of reconciling two potentially competing needs of open justice and protecting children, is not to fall into the trap of thinking this is a simple binary – open the courts, yes/no. The President comments that the work of National Family Justice Observatory, The Transparency Project and the success of the CoP Open Justice Project, run by Professor Celia Kitzinger, has shown that it is possible to produce commentary and information about the system, without compromising privacy. So how do we move this work forward to a larger stage?

A major shift is required in culture and process to increase transparency

The President notes that previous efforts to effect this shift have not worked. Journalists don’t attend court hearings – and why would they! They are worried about being found in contempt of court. Judges are not publishing enough judgments – unsurprisingly when they do not have the time to prepare anonymised judgments.

The suggestions to achieve the shift are as follows. This will start with a trial run or ‘pilot’ in two local authority areas (one urban and one rural) to ensure that the changes work in an effective way and to deal with any unforeseen issues and problems that may arise before it is rolled out nationally. Some are simple, practical and effective and hopefully can be ‘rolled out’ without too much trouble – others however are going to present more significant challenges, and in particular will need money to make them work.

accredited media representatives and legal bloggers to be able, not only to attend and observe Family Court hearings, but also to report publicly on what they see and hear.
Reporting must be subject to very clear rules to maintain both the anonymity of the children and family members who are before the court, and confidentiality with respect to intimate details of their private lives.
to establish a Transparency Implementation Group [‘TIG’] to support implementation of changes
urgent consideration of Parliament to consider section 12 of the AJA – and while waiting, amend the Family Procedure Rules as far as possible to mitigate its impact
to monitor journalists, both locally and nationally, and, where clear misreporting occurs, for it to be taken up with the relevant editors.
establish links at a national level between the PFD and the Society of Editors, and at a local level between DFJ’s and their local media.
establish a Media Liaison Committee comprised of journalists, media lawyers and judiciary (together with others who may include individuals who are wholly from outside the spheres of Family Justice or the media).establish a forum for discussion between the local and national family judiciary
Further consideration of what documents should be disclosed, giving the judge an over arching discretion to withhold documentation if necessary.
Accredited media representatives and legal bloggers should be added to the list of those to whom a party may communicate information relating to children proceedings under FPR, r 12.75(1), PD12G and PD14E.
In order to ensure that a larger number of judgments are published, all judges to publish anonymised versions of at least 10% of their judgments each year – this may sound low but will be a significant improvement on what is happening now.
press for the establishment of an Anonymisation Unit within HMCTS which, through a combination of human input and/or software, will undertake the task of anonymisation.
DFJ’s to invite local MP’s to the court so that a fuller understanding of the work and approach of the Family Court can, over time, develop.
a scheme of compulsory data collection at the end of each case.
court lists should be made available in advance to journalists/bloggers which identify the general nature of the proceedings, the category of hearing and the time estimate.
a modern online hub to access which will explain the work of the Family Court, how cases are dealt with, what other options exist for dispute resolution and how to make an application. The website could signpost visitors to other potential sources of support or information. It should be the go-to first point of reference for anyone who has a need to engage with the Family Court.
the public to have access to an annual report, which would include data setting out case numbers, categories of proceedings and outcomes. The report would also include an annual audit on the progress of the various initiatives that are now to be launched under the overall umbrella of ‘transparency’.

My comments

I agree that something has to change. I echo all that is said about the dangers of allowing anonymous reports made to partisan journalists being the only public source of information that many have. But I do wonder how simple declarations of intent such as “openness and confidentiality are not irreconcilable and each is achievable. The aim is to enhance public confidence significantly, whilst at the same time firmly protecting continued confidentiality” are really are going to play out in practice.

I have commented about my own ‘journey’ with regard to transparency – from my initial and in hindsight embarrassingly naive world view that all we needed was to embrace open discussion and all would be well – to what I think is a much bleaker, but more realistic view of human nature, our love of stories and our resistance to accepting facts which challenge our narratives. I am afraid I no longer have confidence in journalists to reliably report facts, rather than cherry pick those facts to suit a narrative. The depressing reality is that most journalists only appear to care about the ‘sexy’ stories – the vast and mundane bulk of family cases will not attract their attention. It is not simply fear of contempt of court that has seen them stay away from court rooms. It is rather than 99% of family cases are of absolutely no interest to other than the people directly involved.

I am particularly concerned about the proposals regarding what documentation is to be released. At para 43 the President says:

My preliminary view is that those attending should be allowed to read position statements and witness statements but not medical reports or primary documents such as police disclosure. However, in all cases the judge will have a discretion to withhold documentation if that is necessary on the facts of the case.

This is going to need very careful thought. My own experience of journalists attempting to see documents which provide the ‘meat’ of a case – namely highly sensitive and personally distressing details about mental health conditions etc – has been entirely negative, leading to a raft of ‘satellite litigation’ over what could or couldn’t be disclosed, wasting the time of the courts and causing considerable distress to the lay parties. I am afraid that it is medical and police reports that journalists will want to see, as they are likely to contain the kind of intimate detail to make reporting ‘worthwhile’. I think it is this issue where the simple declaration ‘we can do this!’ is likely to founder and likely to bog down the family courts in further litigation that it simply does not have the capacity to deal with.

Further, it is good to see that the President is clearly alive to the difficulties of asking judges to produce ‘publication ready judgments’ – anonymisation is not simply a matter of stripping out names and replacing with initials. Care must be taken to avoid details that lead to ‘jigsaw identification’. Great detail about the nature and type of abuse suffered by a child is also not appropriate for wider publication. The suggestion is that a dedicated unit is set up to help judges – this would be ideal, but I suggest highly unlikely to ever be achieved, when our daily mantra is ‘there are no resources’ .

Almost as an aside at para 32, the President comments about the importance of data collection, which I think is key. There is a ‘data black hole’ over much of the FJS, and most obviously regarding outcomes; we rarely have feedback about whether or not a ‘final order’ actually brought any longstanding peace to a family. There is work being done by HMCTS across the justice system on collecting and using data, following the report and recommendations of Dr Natalie Byrom “HMCTS: Making the most of HMCTS data October 2020” and I would be very interested to know more about this. Better understanding of who is coming to court, why and what are the outcomes would, in my view, go a long way to improving public confidence in the system without requiring knowledge of intimate details about individual families.

I would also like to see more creative thinking. Judge Wildblood QC the Designated Family Judge for Bristol, has been experimenting for some time with efforts to bring the family justice system to the public with a variety of seminars and plays – his most recent ‘The Shake’ was held on line and about 630 people joined the remote link. There is clearly an enormous appetite for discussion and information and we need to think of other ways we can provide this, rather than simply holding up individual families for scrutiny in the actual court process. For example, I have recently volunteered to be a mentor to school students holding mock Trials, through the ‘Young Citizens’ project – we can think more about how education can be provided via schools to help people grow up to understand their country’s legal systems better.

In essence, what is necessary to achieve confidence in any legal system is quick and affordable access to robust decision making. I have significant doubts that this fundamental aim is going to be helped by encouraging more legal blogging or arguing over whether or not a journalist gets to see a psychiatric report. But, as ever, we will see. I can only hope that this Transparency Review does not join its 2006 iteration in the digital graveyard of lost causes.

Through a Glass Darkly – Transparency in the Family Courts

This is a post by Sarah Phillimore

EDIT 26th March 2021 The appeal failed. The Court of Appeal commenting at para 89 that the Judge had conducted the ultimate balancing test with meticulous care and demonstrated no error of law. Newman deserves credit for her tenacity and is no doubt very disappointed with this result – but the necessary debate about more openness in the family court system cannot proceed in isolation from the very real need to examine how many journalists operate and the harm they do. Privacy rights cannot simply be subsumed by Article 10 rights – they must be balanced and the Court of Appeal has affirmed this was properly done here.

This is a post about the case of Newman v Southampton City Council & Ors [2020] EWHC 2103 (Fam) (05 August 2020. The judgment is very long which is an indication that something important was happening.

Melanie Newman, a journalist wanted to see documents in care proceedings which had ended in October 2018.

The child, born in 2012, had been removed from her mother’s care in 2015 and in 2016 a court ordered that the child be adopted. The mother appealed and succeeded. This is a very rare thing for a parent to do. It cost her about £20,000 and the local authority was not ordered to pay any costs as their decision to apply for a placement order was ‘in line with all professional advice’

If the mother hadn’t appealed, it was likely the relationship with her child would have been severed, certainly throughout her childhood. The Court of Appeal said the matter should be reheard. More assessments were carried out; the local authority changed its plan to rehabilitation and the child went back to her mother.

Melanie Newman wanted to know what was driving an apparent trend for this area to have a unusually high percentage of cases which resulted in orders for adoption. She knew that her application to see the documents was not an application to publish anything about them – that would need a further application. She was interested to investigate how it could happen that a Judge could make an order that a little girl should be adopted, only to have that judgment overturned because of its ‘significant’ gaps and the slimness of the evidence.

The court described ‘the essence’ of Ms Newman’s application in this way at para 118 of the judgment:

The essence of the application is a request by Ms Newman for the court’s permission to immerse herself in the private detail of this family’s domestic affairs (for these purposes with M at its centre) in a search to uncover material which may assist in exposing to public debate at least one of the questions she has formulated through her counsel: did this local authority act lawfully in commencing care proceedings in respect of this child ?

But she did not succeed in gaining access to anything other than a small selection of limited and redacted documents; permission to appeal was refused.

I discuss below why this happened and why I think it was the right decision.

The Law

Hopefully we are now all more familiar with the law in this area than we were a few years ago. The judge examines the framework from para 20 to para 72 of existing statutory restrictions on publication, the developing history of guidance about reporting and transparency, and how the court itself can ease or tighten restrictions using the inherent jurisdiction.

For a more general discussion of transparency and the applicable law, see this post.

The court relied on the case of Webster [2006] as a useful summary of the present law:

The starting point is that justice is administered in public
There is a risk of miscarriages of justice in family cases and the public need to be confident in the system
Freedom of speech, protected by Article 10 is a very important human right
The press play a vital role in ensuring the proper functioning of democracy
But if the court is dealing with children, that is an exception to the rule of open justice, because it involves private family matters that usually people want to keep private – however that could be different when the State is trying to remove children from their families
The court retains the right to relax OR increase existing statutory restrictions on disclosing or publishing information about family cases. This will require a ‘balancing exercise’ between all the different rights in play.

The court noted at para 49 that the move towards greater transparency was taken up by the current President of the Family Division in October 2019, when he published further guidance, flowing directly from the journey of this case when journalists launched a challenge to the decision of the Judge in 2018 to restrict what the journalists could comment on – even the previous Court of Appeal judgment that was already in the public domain!

Applications made to the court to see documents can clearly vary hugely in nature and extent. Here, the court considered the child who wished to know more about his own family history and the different sensitivities that might apply to medical evidence. But even that child was not entitled to ‘conduct an archaeological excavation through the entirety of the trial bundles’ as much of the material he wished to ‘mine’ relates to very personal and private aspects of the lives of other family members.

Factors towards maintaining confidentiality were set out in Re X (Disclosure of Information) [2001] 2 FLR 440.

The interests of the particular child
The interests of litigants generally who didn’t want their private business made public
public interest in encouraging frankness in children’s cases and securing co-operation from professionals who might be deterred from giving evidence if there was publicity
encouraging people who had hurt children to be honest about it

It’s clear these applications are not easy. The court noted the comments of Bodey J in Louise Tickle v The Council of the Borough of North Tyneside & Others [2015] EWHC 2991 (Fam).

However, what I will say is that this application demonstrates how time consuming and troublesome applications like this can be; not only for the media, but also for the court and for all parties. These are not easy applications. They require time, effort, research and expense on what is essentially a satellite issue. For these reasons it is important that if and when Local Authorities and the media (and/or the other parties) do come to realise there is an issue between them about how much should be reportable and on what terms, there should be sensible and responsible dialogue as soon as possible, with a view to finding an early modus vivendi. With the application of give-and-take, a measure of common- sense, and the engagement of the Children’s Guardian, it should be possible in most cases to come up with a formula based on decided authority which steers a path between (a) the need for greater transparency in the public interest, and (b) the need to respect the privacy and sensitivities of those whose lives are involved.”

What the parties wanted

Ms Newman wanted to see the court files to undertake an ‘independent journalistic assessment’ as to whether or not the public interest demanded a closer look at this case where a child was initially placed for adoption ‘on the slimmest of evidence’.

The local authority identified some documents it was willing to provide, but resisted wider disclosure. While recognising that Ms Newman was a respected journalist with a legitimate interest in this case, her request was ‘unprecedented’ and represented a significant intrusion into private rights. If granted, this request would set a dangerous precedent, and encourage other journalists to make similar requests. There was also a significant amount of material in the public domain; the Court of Appeal had already exposed the injustice done to the mother and child and fulfilled its proper function as a check and balance on a miscarriage of justice.

Further, the principle of open justice and freedom of speech had never been absolute – both were subject to ‘material and legitimate’ inroads.

Lord Mance put it this way in Kennedy v Charity Commission (Secretary of State for Justice and others intervening) [2014] UKSC 20, [2015] AC 455.

Information is the key to sound decision-making, to accountability and development; it underpins democracy and assists in combatting poverty, oppression, corruption, prejudice and inefficiency. Administrators, judges, arbitrators, and persons conducting inquiries and investigations depend on it; likewise the press, NGOs and individuals concerned to report on issues of public interest. Unwillingness to disclose information may arise through habits of secrecy or reasons of self-protection. But information can be genuinely private, confidential or sensitive, and these interests merit respect in their own right and, in the case of those who depend on information to fulfil their functions, because this may not otherwise be forthcoming….

Those representing the child argued that disclosure was not in her best interests. They made the valid point (see para 102) that it is artificial to see Ms Newman’s request as simply to access the documents. She wanted to see the documents because she wanted to write about them and publish what she writes. The application for disclosure cannot be seen in isolation from the obvious wish driving the request for disclosure.

The court therefore considered that although Ms Newman is a serious journalist with a serious purpose, that does not provide a starting point of access to documents, but it does engage the necessary ‘balancing exercise’ to determine which rights will prevail.

The court permitted Ms Newman to see limited aspects of the court file, commenting at para 162

This is a targeted and fact-specific exercise which has involved a careful balancing exercise of all the competing rights involved as between the individual parties to this particular case. I have rejected Ms Newman’s application for wholesale disclosure of the court file but I have agreed that she should be entitled to see limited aspects of the material it contains. To the extent that I have interfered with either the mother’s or M’s Article 8 rights and/or Ms Newman’s Article 10 rights, I have done so in what I judge to be an entirely proportionate manner. An important factor in my decision has been the mother’s consent to disclosure but this does not mean that in every case where an aggrieved parent supports media access to material generated in children’s proceedings, journalists should be encouraged to make applications.

The court found that different considerations applied in respect of different broad categories of evidence – medical and health records, foster care and contact records, police disclosure, previous records, minutes of child protection conferences and experts reports.

With regard to medical evidence, the court said this at para 136:

In considering where the balance lies, it seems to me that the overarching factor which I have to weigh in the balance is whether it is in M’s overall best interests to release to a journalist the most intimate details of her own and her mother’s medical records even if the dissemination goes no further than that. Such a step would represent a clear court-directed intrusion of this child’s most basic and fundamental rights to a private family life. If those rights are to be the subject of court-sanctioned interference, there has to be a proper justification. I appreciate that Ms Newman cannot justify that interference on any specific basis because she has not yet seen the medical and other records. She wants to read them in order to see what they contain. Having reflected carefully, and because of the intimately personal and sensitive nature of this material, I do not consider the mother’s consent to its release on her own or M’s behalf to be sufficient to displace the overwhelming need to ensure that such information remains confidential from public scrutiny and I would include Ms Newman within this embargo. In the context of this application, I am satisfied that she has sufficient material about the medical history of both M and her mother. It is either already in the public domain and recorded in the judgments to which I have referred or it is likely on the balance of probabilities to be irrelevant to any decisions which were made in those proceedings. To the extent that those judgments have not recorded the full detail of the medical evidence available in the bundles, I am satisfied that such confidence will have been preserved for a very good reason.

However, a different approach was justified in terms of reports and assessments that relate to the mother herself where the balance fell in favour of allowing Ms Newman to see them, redacted where necessary to preserve the rights of third parties.

Happily, all agreed that Ms Newman should not have to pay towards the considerable costs of the substantive application. But the local authority sought £1,200 to pay for the costs of redaction and copying. Ms Newman agreed to pay for the costs of copying. The court noted that Ms Newman’s legal team had acted pro bono and that Ms Newman did not have the backing of a large media organisation. Therefore the court ordered Ms Newman only to pay limited costs towards copying documents.

Her permission to appeal was refused.

Conclusion

The key point I think was this: it is not for journalists to establish the lawfulness of court decisions. Their important role is to hold up to public scrutiny the reasons for the rules that bind us together in a democratic society. In this case the Court of Appeal had already set out and scrutinised the failings in this case and put right the injustice done. There was no criticism of the local authority for bringing care proceedings and its subsequent actions were not seen as sufficiently unreasonable to attract sanction in costs.

I can on many levels understand the frustration of the journalists. It is difficult to read – at para 103 – the child’s barrister placing reliance on ‘research’ about what children think about publicity, that is based on such tiny numbers of self selecting interviewees. – see ‘Safeguarding Privacy and Respect for Children and Young People” [2014].

It was also interesting to see discussion of a key point that is often overlooked. Who is going to pay for the practicalities of disclosure? In this case the court decided that it was proportionate to ask the local authority to redact the documents. That may not always be the case.

I think that there is certainly a case for more and better research about the impact on children of publicity of such cases.

However, the judgment here is very careful and detailed and in my view provides compelling reasons for why the right of any journalist to access court documents must be carefully and cautiously analysed.

The court commented at para 163:

The principle of transparency and openness is of crucial importance in a democratic society. There have been significant developments towards greater transparency in the Family Courts but any wholesale departure from the principled and well-recognised protection afforded to the interests of children is one which will need to be informed by a careful evidence-based review. Just such a process is ongoing at the present time. As advertised in his 2019 View from the President’s Chambers to which I have referred in paragraph 72, Sir Andrew McFarlane, as President of the Family Division, has assembled a panel who will assist him in the important task of considering whether the line which is currently drawn between, one the one hand, the need for confidentiality for the parties and children whose personal information is the subject of proceedings, and, on the other, the need for the public to have confidence in the work done in these courts on behalf of the State and society is the right one. The consultation process is ongoing as I conclude this judgment.

It is certainly true that journalists play a vital role in shining a light on the failures and excesses of the State. I agree that a system that works in ‘secrecy’ risks bad practice becoming the norm and unchallenged. But I also note that for every Carl Bernstein we have an Andrew Norfolk. There is a risk for all of us who feel passionately about the subjects that interest us; we risk our objectivity and we risk causing harm to others in pursuit of a single minded goal and focus.

My views about the need for more openness and transparency in the family courts have undergone significant evolution over the past six years and I find myself more firmly over the line of ‘less’ rather than ‘more’ – sadly because I have lost faith in journalists to report with impartiality and integrity.

But it is necessary that we never stop thinking about this. I applaud Ms Newman’s tenacity and bravery in making this application; it must have been stressful and difficult. But I think the court made the right call here.

I will be interested to see where further consultation and guidance takes us.

Journalists in family courts – what can they report and can you keep them out?

This is a post by Sarah Phillimore

I have written generally on the issue of media reporting from family cases and also of my growing disenchantment with the ability or even the will of many journalists to report fairly and accurately, even with the information right in front of them. I had always naively thought that journalists investigated what was actually happening and reported on that – but that naivety cannot survive the reality that too many now appear to approach the family justice system looking for facts to fit a pre-determined theory.

Andrew Norfolk’s ‘Muslim Foster Carer’ report was one of the more serious examples of journalistic failure in this regard, but there are sadly many others.

However, regardless of what opinion I hold of journalists, its clear that the issue of greater transparency in the family courts and what can be reported about what happens there, is not going away; and nor should it. It is right that we are able as a society to understand the mechanisms of such an important element of it. I agree that people and organisations that go unchallenged have serious potential to fall into some very bad habits indeed.

I do however remain uneasy that the present push to simply make more information available is not the way to go about it; not without some greater reassurance that those trusted with the information will use it to inform debate rather than stoke up the fires of their own particular prejudice. Because the huge problem with this is that they want to use actual, identifiable families and children as their kindling.

We have to be willing to weigh the rights of parents and children to keep their painful private histories private, as against the rights of journalists or bloggers to promote any particular campaign.

So I am going to look in particular at the procedural mechanics of how journalists or legal bloggers may be involved in family proceedings and what you should do if you object to them reporting on your case or even attending your case at all.

At the time of writing (March 30th 2020) the UK is in its second week of ‘lock down’ during the COVID 19 global pandemic so the situation is of course made even more complicated by the prospect of remote court hearings via telephone or video link. Hopefully this situation will resolve in time.

The right of journalists and bloggers to attend court – yes they can.

This is hopefully now NOT controversial. Journalists and legal bloggers have a right to come into a family court. Rule 27.11 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010 allows ‘accredited journalists’ – those holding a UK Press Card – to attend private family hearings. Since October 2018, this rule extends to cover ‘legal bloggers’.

FPR 27 refers to “duly accredited representatives of news gathering and reporting organisations” – I shall use the shorthand term ‘journalist’ throughout.

However, the right to attend hearings does not confer a right to report on proceedings or publish details of proceedings. There is a clear tension between the right of journalists to report about court hearings and the right of the parties – particularly children – to keep probably very sensitive and upsetting material out of the public domain.

See section 12(1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 and Children Act 1989, s 97(2). These Acts provide exceptions to the general principle in favour of open justice. The court may also relax or restrict reporting restrictions in appropriate cases using its inherent jurisdiction. These matters are all covered in more detail here.

The guidance of the President of the Family Division, issued on 3rd October 2019, sets out the relevant legal and procedural considerations for the court, where issues arise about extending or limited what can be reported in a family case. As a matter of substantive law, the court will have to carry out a ‘balancing exercise’, with an ‘intense focus’ on the likely competing rights before it. These will probably involve (but are not restricted to) consideration of ECHR Articles 6, 8 and 10 – the right to a fair trial, right to privacy and right to freedom of expression.

The President’s guidance refers to a useful summary of required balancing exercise as set out at paragraph 22 of Re J (A Child) [2013] EWHC 2694 (Fam).

The best interests of any child involved in the proceedings are not ‘paramount’ in this argument, but will be the court’s primary consideration.

If no agreement can be reached, the court should hear submissions and replies, and give a judgment on the application. This doesn’t have to be a ‘full’ judgment but it must contain enough information to allow the parties to understand how the Judge got to his or her conclusions. See Re W [2014] EWCA Civ 1303 at para [49].

I don’t want journalists to report about my hearing. What can I do?

There is a presumption that journalists may attend family court hearings but still clear and significant limitations on what they can report and what documents they can see.

The court has even wider powers – it can exclude journalists from all of part of any hearing entirely – see FPR r 27.11(3). At any stage of the proceedings the court can decide not to allow journalists or other reporters to attend a hearing or part of a hearing if the following test of necessity is met:

in the interests of any child concerned in, or connected with, the proceedings;
for the safety or protection of a party, a witness in the proceedings, or a person connected with such a party or witness; or
for the orderly conduct of the proceedings; or
justice will otherwise be impeded or prejudiced.

The court can make this decision on its own initiative or after representations by any party, witness, child’s guardian or the child, if of sufficient age and understanding.

What is key however, is that the court must give an opportunity to any member of the press who is present an opportunity to make representations.

So if the journalists have turned up at the hearing, it seems pretty straightforward. You can make your application then and there and everyone is present to hear what is said and respond to it.

However, more significant problems arise if you want to make an application before any hearing has taken place.

But what if I want to exclude journalists before the hearing starts?

Applying to exclude all and any representatives of media organisations is clearly a serious thing and you will need to make that people who want to object, have a proper opportunity to do so. We now need to examine the procedural issues, rather than those of of substantive law and proportionality.

You will need to think carefully about this. Attempting to exclude the press may in fact just alert journalists to your case who otherwise would not have known about it. But if you consider press interest is inevitable and would be harmful, you may need to make an application in advance of the hearing. The Practice Direction 12 I comments that journalists are used to weighing up information in a short period of time so there may be more leeway for less notice to be given – but unless its an emergency you will need to make your application in sufficient time before the hearing.

The President’s Guidance sets out a summary of what you need to do at para 6:

Guidance as to the procedure for applying for RRO’s [Reporting Restrictions Orders] in the Family Division founded upon ECHR Convention rights can be found within FPR 2010, PD 12I and a CAFCASS Practice Note: ‘Applications for Reporting Restrictions Orders’(as updated in 2015). The application must be made in the High Court and notice must be given to the press through the Press Association (‘PA’) Injunction Alert Service [Human Rights Act 1998, s 12(2)].

Section 12 of the HRA is important as it sets out that an injunction restricting the exercise of the right to freedom of expression must not be granted where the person against whom the application is made is neither present nor represented unless the Court is satisfied (a) that the applicant has taken all practical steps to notify the respondent or (b) that there are compelling reasons why the respondent should not be notified.

It is possibly to get an injunction ‘without notice’ but it is clear that the circumstances must be ‘exceptional’ when one is attempting to restrict an Article 10 right. For further discussion see Re X (A Child) (Residence and Contact) ([2009] EWHC 1728 (Fam)).

What is the Press Association Injunction Alert Service?

The Media Lawyer website explains

This service may be used to notify the subscribing media organisations of your intention to apply to the High Court for an injunction which will affect their rights under Article 10 by prohibiting or restricting reporting.

Nearly all the national media organisations have agreed to take part in the notification system.

The notification system

The purpose of the notification system is to provide a simple secure and verifiable method of sending national media organisations notice of proposed applications for injunctions, together with supporting documentation.

The notification system serves all the national media (newspapers and broadcasters) with the exception of the Financial Times and Sky News. If notice has to be served on these two companies it needs to be served on them directly. A list of those companies subscribing to this system and their contact details are at Media Organisations.

Nor does the CopyDirect service extend to local or regional media or magazines. The Practice Note (see below) states: If service of the application on any specific organisation or person not covered is required it should be effected directly. However this note does not expand on how such service is to be effective or what it means by ‘required’.

There is useful discussion from the then President of the Family Division in Re P (Enforced Caesarean: Reporting Restrictions) [2014] 2 FLR 410, FD, at [46]. This is also set out in the Practice Note below.

The President quote from a ‘most helpful note’ sent to his office by Mike Dodd in December 2013, the then legal editor of the Press Association.

“There is a page on the Injunctions Alerts Service website http://www.medialawyer.press.net/courtapplications/mediaorganisations.jsp – which lists the media organisations served, and the relevant telephone numbers, and which states at the top:’The notification system serves all the national media (newspapers and broadcasters) with the exception of the Financial Times and Sky News. If notice has to be served on these two companies it needs to be served on them directly.’
The service was also established on the basis that subscribing organisations would be taken to have been served with an application if notification was sent via the service. The system works as follows: Would-be applicants are supposed to call a number, given in the Practice Note, and speak to the Customer Services staff who deal with the service. They then send the documents, electronically (which is easier) or by fax, to the service. These documents are, if necessary, scanned to be put into electronic form, and are then distributed via e-mail alerts to the national media. Distribution is followed up by calls to each of the subscribing organisations to check that service has been received.

The service does NOT serve orders which have been obtained from the courts (despite the continuing efforts by some law firms to use it for this purpose).

The Media Lawyer site sets out the practical steps:

An applicant (or his solicitor) should telephone the Press Association’s CopyDirect service on a dedicated number – 0870 837 6429 – confirming that he wishes to apply for a reporting restriction order in the Family Division. The documentation identified in paragraph 3 of the Practice Note should then be faxed to 0870 830 6949 or emailed to the email address provided by CopyDirect when the applicant calls the service. Attachments to emails must be in Word format.
CopyDirect will, on receipt of the documentation send via either email or fax the documentation to the subscribing media organisations. CopyDirect will call the media organisations to ensure the material has been received.
CopyDirect will also confirm receipt to the applicant. CopyDirect will maintain records of notifications received and sent, including timings, for a period of three months. Copies can be made available to applicants, if required, for verification.

Operational Hours

Mon-Fri 8am-11pm
Saturday and Sunday 10am-11pm
Christmas Eve 8am-6pm
Christmas Day 9am-6pm
Boxing Day operating hours will be the same as the day on which it falls.
New Years Eve 8am-11pm
New Years Day operating hours will be the same as the day on which it falls.

There are no costs to applicants for this service.

Judges will expect applicants to have filled out the checklist for those applying for injunctions before they entertain an application. The Checklist PDF can be downloaded here

The Practice Direction 12I and Practice Note

The Media Lawyer site also provides a copy of the standard form of order to be adopted when a reporting restriction order is made in the Family Division. This is set out under ‘Further Reading’ below. It is also helpful to include an Explanatory Note . This sets out briefly what the case is about so allows journalists to make an informed decision about whether they want to object to your application or not.

The Practice Direction makes it clear such applications need to be made in the High Court. The other parties should get at least 14 days notice – Practice Direction 12C. The court may extend or shorten this time (see rule 4.1(3)(a)), using its general powers of case management. However, the case of AB in 2019, dealing with an application for reporting restrictions concerning an inquest into the death of a child, says only 3 days is required, relying on the CPR, rather than the FPR.

Methods of service are set out at Part 6 of the CPR – generally personal service, first class post or can be done electronically.

Application and evidence
The application may be a freestanding claim brought under the Part 8 procedure in the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 or it may be made within existing proceedings to which either the CPR or Family Proceedings Rules 2010 apply. I

It may be appropriate to seek a direction under CPR 39.2(4), that the identity of a party or witness should not be disclosed, and for documents to be drafted identifying individuals by initials.

The applicant should prepare

(a) the application/claim form

(b) a witness statement justifying the need for an order

(d) a draft order (see suggested form of this order below) and

(e) an explanatory note (an example of this can be found at the end of the suggested draft order below)

If you don’t have time to get the relevant documents together, the court will probably want you to provide a written statement as soon as you can. Unless the court orders something different, you should provide these documents on request to any person who is affected by the order. See W v H (Family Division: Without Notice Orders) [2001] 2 WLR 253; [2001] 2 FLR 927.

So how do I know who and how to serve?

The process seems relatively straightforward for those news organisations covered by Copy Direct. However, it does NOT cover the Financial Times, Sky News or ‘local or regional media or magazines’ OR legal bloggers.

There seems to be no guidance as to how a litigant in person is supposed to identify these entities and then go on to serve them. It surely cannot be proportionate to suggest that every single regional newspaper needs to be contacted to inform them that an application is going to be made to exclude them from a hearing about which they would almost certainly have had no interest in attending or reporting about.

The Practice Note isn’t much help, simply referring that service of ORDERS should be ‘effected in the usual way’ – the Media Lawyer website gives the addresses of the main news organisations on its site. However, with regard to applications to restrict attendance of journalists NOT subscribing to Copy Direct, it simply states

Appropriate local and regional newspapers and magazines should be served with application notices in the usual way

Again, it is not clear how one is supposed identify an ‘appropriate’ local/regional reporting outlet and how one is then supposed to go on to serve an entity one may not even be aware exists. Nor is it clear at all who or what now comprises ‘legal bloggers’ who may wish to be informed and how they may be contacted.

The LA in the AB case (above) served the media via Copy Direct and also the local papers in their area, which seems sensible – but the information they provided and a very sparse ‘explanatory note’ was criticised by the court.

The Media Lawyer website offers information at

www.willingspress.com

This is a subscriber website detailing comprehensive lists of UK and overseas titles (newspapers and magazines), their contact details and publishers – but at the time of writing, this link does not appear to work.

I can only hope that for litigants in person, so long as they comply with what is set out with regard to the Copy Direct notification service, and inform the Financial Times and Sky News separately, they cannot be criticised for any disproportionate breach of any journalist or legal bloggers Article 10 rights.

I will update this post if I get any better/further information.

Transparency Made Simple!

This is a post by Sarah Phillimore

I was asked if I could re-state the law about confidentiality in family proceedings for the benefit of parents who want to talk about their proceedings publicly. What follows is an attempt to simplify the main post on this site about transparency. The usual warning applies – this cannot be used as particular legal advice for a particular case. If you are worried about the consequences of anything you do, you need to get advice from someone in real life who knows what is going on in your particular case. But I hope it can be a useful condensed guide to the general principles.

Contempt of court is a really serious thing and can lead to you going to prison. But what the courts really don’t like are people who deliberately break the law in an attempt to show how much they dislike the court system. If you can show that you tried your best to stay on the right side of the law I think its unlikely any court would want to give you serious punishment.

Golden rules

Don’t identify any children – by name or by providing information that would make it easy for others to work out who the child is for example, names of older siblings or school the child goes to. This is called ‘jigsaw identification’
Don’t publish any evidence or talk about in detail what happened in court unless you have the permission of the Judge
Generally to ‘publish’ means ‘making information known to the general public’ so would include putting information on the Internet, such as a Facebook profile.

Why is it so complicated?

Because the law in this area has developed over a long time and in a variety of different ways. If you find it hard to understand – don’t worry. So do the Judges and the lawyers.

Why can’t I just talk about my case?

Because children do not get a choice about whether or not they are part of care proceedings and it is very unfair to publicise information they might find very embarrassing or shameful.

Important laws you need to know

Section 97 of the Children Act 1989

Section 97(2) says no person shall publish anything which is intended or likely to identify any child as being involved in any proceedings under the Children Act 1989 or the Adoption Act 2002, including the child’s address or school.

If you do this it can be a criminal offence but you have a defence if you didn’t know or suspect that the published material was intended or likely to identify the child.

Section 12 Administration of Justice Act 1960.

It is a contempt of court under this section to publish information about ‘private proceedings’ UNLESS you are telling a professional something they need to know to protect a child.

You can publish information about ‘the nature of the dispute’ but you can’t refer to the actual evidence, not even in summary. This is quite a tricky distinction. There is no time limit to this section so you are caught by it even when the care proceedings are over.

This doesn’t cover the identify of witnesses in care proceedings so they can be named unless the Judge makes a different order.

In Re B (A Child) (Disclosure) [2004] EWHC 411 (Fam) [2004] 2 FLR 142 at para [82](v)-(vii); Munby J tried to shed some light on what section 12 covers:

section 12 protects is the privacy and confidentiality:
- (i) of the documents on the court file; and
- (ii) of what has gone on in front of the judge in his courtroom. …
section 12 does not prevent publication
- of the fact that proceedings are happening, or
- identification of the parties
- or the comings and goings of the parties and witnesses,
- or incidents taking place outside the court or indeed within the precincts of the court but outside the room in which the judge is conducting the proceedings.

I want to talk about my case at a conference or to a journalist

So how does section 12 stop you talking about the details of the case? This is a difficult area and causes problems for the lawyers to understand.

Sir James Munby looked at one example;

“Says a friend of [the mother]: “She has been portrayed as a bad mother who is unfit to look after her children. Nothing could be further from the truth. She is wonderful to [them] and they love her. She wants custody of [them] and we will see what happens in court”.”

The Judge dealing with the case found that WAS a breach of section 12 as it went ‘far beyond a description of the nature of the dispute and reached deeply into the substance of the matters’

However, it is clear that every case turns on its own facts, which makes it difficult to provide clear advice about what would or would not be acceptable to talk about. If you are worried, then ideally you need to ask the Judge who heard your case for permission to raise certain issues.

As a general point you are probably ok if you

talk about the fact that there were care proceedings
talk about what happened after the care proceedings and how it made you feel

How does the court approach applications for publicity?

The High Court has the power, due to section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and its own ‘inherent jurisdiction’ to make orders outside of the statutory provisions about people coming into court or being able to talk about what happens in court.

If the High Court wants to make such an order, the court must examine any competing rights under Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention and undertake the ‘balancing exercise’ as set out in Re S (A Child) (Indentification: Restrictions on publication) [2004] UKHL 47

The case of Re Webster: Norfolk County Council v Webster and Ors [2007] 1 FLR 1146 identified 4 important factors for the court when it considered whether or not to allow information about a case to be publicised:

The case was alleged to involve a miscarriage of justice
The parents wanted publicity
The case had already been extensively publicized
There was a need for the full facts to emerge in a way which would improve public confidence in the judicial system.

In Re J [2013] where the Local Authority wanted an order ‘contra mundum’ (against everyone in the world), preventing the identification of a child in care proceedings, to last until the child was 18. The court didn’t agree.

This case involved J, one of the parents’ four children (all of whom went on to be adopted). J’s father posted on the internet various pictures and film of J being removed from the parents’ care, describing what he had published in these kind of terms:

“Waiting in the corner, in the shadows lurks a vampire-ish creature, a wicked, predatory social worker who is about to steal the child from the loving parents. Caught on camera – [name] of Staffordshire social services creeps in the corner like a ghoul, like a dirty secret, like a stain on the wall … You are a wicked, wicked woman [name] – God knows exactly what you have done, you must be very afraid, now! You WILL suffer for this.

Here is an interesting article about this case, in particular the ironic consequence that in attempting to restrain the father from posting his videos on the internet, the LA ensured that he received a great deal of publicity and probably more people saw the videos than would have done if they had not applied for the order.

Sir James Munby said this about Re J

26. The first matter relates to what it has become conventional to call transparency. There is a pressing need for more transparency, indeed for much more transparency, in the family justice system. There are a number of aspects to this.

27. One is the right of the public to know, the need for the public to be confronted with, what is being done in its name. Nowhere is this more necessary than in relation to care and adoption cases. Such cases, by definition, involve interference, intrusion, by the state, by local authorities and by the court, into family life. In this context the arguments in favour of publicity – in favour of openness, public scrutiny and public accountability – are particularly compelling […]

28. I have said this many times in the past but it must never be forgotten that, with the state’s abandonment of the right to impose capital sentences, orders of the kind which family judges are typically invited to make in public law proceedings are amongst the most drastic that any judge in any jurisdiction is ever empowered to make. When a family judge makes a placement order or an adoption order in relation to a twenty-year old mother’s baby, the mother will have to live with the consequences of that decision for what may be upwards of 60 or even 70 years, and the baby for what may be upwards of 80 or even 90 years. We must be vigilant to guard against the risks.

29. This takes me on to the next point. We strive to avoid miscarriages of justice, but human justice is inevitably fallible. The Oldham and Webster cases stand as terrible warning to everyone involved in the family justice system, the latter as stark illustration of the fact that a miscarriage of justice which comes to light only after the child has been adopted will very probably be irremediable. […] We must have the humility to recognise – and to acknowledge – that public debate, and the jealous vigilance of an informed media, have an important role to play in exposing past miscarriages of justice and in preventing possible future miscarriages of justice.

Rule 12.73 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010

You won’t be in contempt of court if you discuss information about care proceedings so long as you are talking to a person named on this list.

a party to the proceedings;
the legal representative of a party;
a professional legal adviser;
Cafcass
the Legal Services Commission;
an expert whose instruction by a party has been authorised by the court for the purposes of the proceedings;
a professional acting in furtherance of the protection of children;
an independent reviewing officer appointed in respect of a child who is, or has been, subject to proceedings to which this rule applies;

Why I no longer support opening up the family courts

This is a post by Sarah Phillimore

Yesterday I was told that a published judgment in a family case had been the subject of an article in a tabloid newspaper. I am not going to link to either the case or the article for reasons which I hope will become very clear. But if anyone doubts the veracity of what I am saying, contact me and I will share the links with you privately.

The article was the usual tabloid fodder. No discussion of the wider issues examined by the judgment, no recognition of the work done by parents, the social workers, or the court. It read to me simply as an exercise in slut shaming. Given the level of detail about the services the parents had been offered it was apparently easy for people in their locality to know who they are. The parents, I am told and understandably – are distraught.

I had an email discussion with a journalist about this. I haven’t asked their permission to repeat their emails so I don’t. But you will get a flavour of the conversation from mine:

This is why transparency will stall as journalists are so irresponsible….

Really? You didn’t notice even a whiff of slut shaming in their approach? It is this kind of thing that will slam door shut on transparency. Journalists have to step up…

OK but the door to transparency remains firmly shut – this is why. Again the excuse that journalists only hold mirror up to society, rarely any recognition of or responsibility taken for how your profession feeds that. A great shame. The mother is distraught. That is a whole group of lawyers who won’t be supporting the next publication of a judgment and I too am wavering.

The damage done by journalists over the death of Peter Connelly is with us still. They continue to compound this damage as for example we see with the reporting of Andrew Norfolk over the ‘Muslim Foster carers’ case. Time and time again I see gleeful reporting of women who have had children removed as just some kind of shameful baby making machines. But these are real people – with real children.

It is just not good enough to say that journalists are ‘just giving the public what they want’. Journalists need to accept that they are also responsible for encouraging and feeding this – going to ever more lurid extremes in their reporting to secure readership and comment.

I have always been wary about whether or not we have the journalists we need to report on sensitive family matters. I have decided now that we do not. I remain very grateful for the efforts of Tortoise media to provide more detailed coverage of these important issues but my fear is that they will always be overshadowed and overwhelmed by the tsunami of nasty, prurient baiting that comes from the majority of the press.

I am still glad I played a small part in Louise Tickle’s victory in the Court of Appeal to challenge an unlawful Reporting Restrictions Order, and that it will lead to a greater discussion about transparency. What she revealed about the nature and extent to which lawyers either understood or applied the law was frightening – the expensive administrative labyrinth she entered into merely to make an appeal, even more so. I will continue to admire and pay tribute to the courage and tenacity she showed to do the right thing.

But should anyone care to ask for my views in the forthcoming Transparency Review then they will be as set out above. I sadly don’t think the majority of our journalists have the will or the ability to report on family matters in any other way than sensationalised click bait. And this hurts people. It doesn’t ‘shine a light’ on the system or increase public understanding. Its just the 2019 equivalent of the stocks or the ducking stool.

I will not support further opening up of the family courts. I will no longer support the pain and misery of my parent clients being offered up for public entertainment. I will no longer agree to the publication of any judgment in a case where I act, unless and until I can see some recognition from our Fourth Estate of the power they wield, and the harm they do.

Why its time to open up the Family Courts

On Saturday 3rd November I attended a workshop at UWE organised by journalist Louise Tickle as part of her project to investigate opening up the family courts and recalibrate the balance between privacy and scrutiny. Disclaimer: both Louise and I are members of The Transparency Project, so our interest in and commitment to further openness of the family courts is obvious and I make no secret of my bias in favour of this happening as soon as possible.

I have undergone an evolution in my views since 2011, when I first took up any kind of campaigning role. Whilst I initially parroted the phrase ‘private not secret’ and worried about the impact on children of increased scrutiny, my exposure over the years to obvious examples of where the system was failing has changed my views.

This blog post is an attempt to outline what I think are the most important reasons for opening up the family courts and what we can do about the real and serious fears of many that we are simply encouraging a salacious and irresponsible Press to make free with a family’s misery.

Have a look at the Twitter hashtag #openfamilycourt for some contemporaneous tweeting about what happened at the workshop.

Justice must be seen to be done

This is the simple, basic and big one. As David Burrows has pointed out (see ‘Further Reading’ below), family lawyers look through the wrong end of the telescope, assuming that family cases must be held in private from the outset when in fact it is the ‘open court principle’ that is the default position. Issues of permissible privacy and statutory limitation, especially regarding children can be discussed from that starting point.

As far as is possible we should strive to make sure that the public can access the courts and understand the system of justice that operates in their name. It is the fundamental principle underpinning our entire system of justice and for too long the family court system has been allowed to develop along tracks which lead it far away.

Lack of scrutiny can have terrible consequences.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1058733467033370624

It is very clear to me – not just from this workshop, but from attempts to engage with a wide range of people over many years – that most of us are just stuck on broadcast when it comes to issues that cause us particular pain. Our view of the situation narrows to encompass only that which has hurt us. This is entirely understandable and I don’t criticise anyone for it unless and until they demonstrate to me that their minds are closed to any possibility that their views may sensibly be challenged.

This single issue focus is often a massive block to any sensible discussion about how we move forward and it is made far worse by the obstacles the current family justice system puts in the way of understanding and scrutiny. I don’t pretend that opening the courts would be a miracle cure for the single issue campaigner – but it would allow me more authority when I say that their perception or their understanding is wrong; THIS is what happened.

I have often wondered why the lawyers are so absent from the parents’ narratives on social media. I am now beginning to understand exactly why. What was telling from many of the parents at the workshop was that the lack of public scrutiny meant that no one really understood the system they were entering, they felt powerless to engage with or even challenge their own lawyer and the power imbalance was thus magnified. A system of parent advocates could be a way forward.

Lack of scrutiny allows stale cliche to become unchallenged truth

There are stock phrases and belief systems that influence the family justice system. Many – in my view – are based on imperfect understanding of existing research, wishful thinking or used as a quick get away from any attempt to actually think and worry about a situation that may actually be incapable of resolution, so lets just get rid of it quickly. Lack of scrutiny or outside challenge means they have been allowed to harden over the years into inescapable ‘truth’.

We are doing this in the child’s best interests, which are paramount.

The most stale and dangerous of them all. It needs unpicking. First how do we find out what is in the child’s best interests and what does ‘paramountcy’ actually mean in the context of the family and wider community?

Children in my cases roughly fall into two camps. They are very young and they can’t speak. We thus find their ‘wishes and feelings’ reported as ‘If Baby X could speak I am sure he would say he would like a warm loving home!’. Or they are frightened and angry teenagers who are desperate for an adult to take control and keep them safe, but find instead that the adults tip toe around them ‘respecting’ their autonomy – until of course the teenager says or does something the adult doesn’t like, in which case all that Gillick competence dries up and blows away.

I am fed up of being involved in cases where children are separately represented but who won’t meet with their lawyers and give instructions. Not only is this a massive drain on the public purse but it also means we aren’t listening to what these children are telling us loud and clear. Be the adult. Make decisions to keep me safe. There is a limit to the extent that children’s views can inform us of their best interests. They lack perspective and understanding about how their choices today can impact their lives down the line. And most of them, on some level, understand that – and crave an adult who cares enough to take that burden of responsibility away.

What is in a ‘child’s best interests’ is then perhaps more accurately rendered as ‘what do I the adult, with my preconceptions, bias, or dangerously high workload, think I can get away with recommending on the basis that its in the child’s best interests?’

Even more perniciously, is the fact that a child’s ‘best interests’ has become narrowed to seeing that child entire and alone in the universe – divorced from family, friends, community etc. The fact that it might be in a the child’s long term best interests to remain links with his family is overshadowed by the immediate ‘best interests’ to be removed from a potentially harmful situation. We see this in the cry of the social worker ‘I am not here for you! I am here for YOUR CHILD’. We see this in the words of the court – Lord Kerr in B (A Child) [2009]

All consideration of the importance of parenthood in private law disputes about residence must be firmly rooted in an examination of what is in the child’s best interests. This is the paramount consideration. It is only as a contributor to the child’s welfare that parenthood assumes any significance.In common with all other factors bearing on what is in the best interests of the child, it must be examined for its potential to fulfil that aim.

i think this is wrong, is going too far, is using section 1 of the CA as a vehicle to drive us far away from what is actually in the best interests of children – to have a safe, permanent home and good relationships with those who love them and who share their identity. Children are not born as a blank slate to be easily picked up and dropped into a new adopted family.

I could be entirely wrong about all of this. But we are not able to talk about it, openly and honestly. It is worth noting that all those at the workshop echoed the concerns expressed by the (now) President of the Family Division in 2017 – that there is no feedback loop in the system. Judges aren’t routinely told about outcomes for children. Greater scrutiny and openness can only improve this dire state of affairs.

But what about the risks to children of increased openness?

I accept that this is a real and serious fear and was certainly recognised by those at the workshop. What I don’t accept however is that debate stops at mere recitation of this risk. If reliance is placed on any assumption that open family courts will harm children then I am going to need to see a lot more research that goes beyond a small and self selecting group. The 2014 report from NYAS/ALC involved only 11 children, for example. Earlier research in 2010 asked only 51 children.

I am going to demand actual analysis of the harm that will befall a child if family proceedings are reported but the name of the child is kept out of it.

It seems to me that the reality is that those in the child’s locality will already be well aware that there have been some sort of legal proceedings; those outside the child’s locality won’t care. So long as the child’s name is kept out of it, so no digital footprint is created that might lead to unpleasant shocks in years to come, what actually is the harm that is caused? If the only harm that is identified is some degree of embarrassment, can that always and automatically be enough to over turn the fundamental principle of open justice?

Maybe I am wrong about this too. But whatever your interpretation of current research, there is never any excuse for Judges and lawyers then to fail to apply the relevant law and to carry out the necessary balancing act between Articles 8 and 10. The recent difficulties faced by Louise Tickle in attempting to persuade a Judge to relax a reporting restrictions order is a clear example of this.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1058736055774576640

Conclusions

So what do I think the next steps should be? If my pious arguments about legal principle and open justice don’t move you, maybe this will. The practical reality is – now that every one is a micro publisher, with an audience of potentially millions around the world – that the genie is already out of the bottle with regard to information circulating on social media and we either take control of this or we let it drown us. What do I think the next steps should be?

Louise continues with her investigations
Some one commissions fresh research into the likely impact of open courts on children, with a sample size greater than 11.
Proper analysis and investigation of what other jurisidictions are doing and how they protect children – see article below in Further Reading where I set out what is being done in some US states
Proper backing and funding to a system for parent advocates – to help parents bridge the gap of understanding and enable them to engage better with their lawyers.
A form of accreditation for journalists who wish to report on family cases so we reduce the risk of the current salacious and irresponsible ‘cherry picking’ only the ‘sexy’ information to report, which causes such justifiable distrust in journalism as a profession.

Are you sitting comfortably? The Art of Story Telling

As a species we appear to be primed to impose a narrative on our experiences. We love stories and we need them. As Adam Gopnik commented in 2012, looking at the science behind storytelling:

Gottschall’s encouraging thesis is that human beings are natural storytellers—that they can’t help telling stories, and that they turn things that aren’t really stories into stories because they like narratives so much. Everything—faith, science, love—needs a story for people to find it plausible. No story, no sale.

The book ‘The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories’ is described thus:

This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of ‘basic stories’ in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling.

It is of course a bitter irony that its author is Christopher Booker, one of the chief proponents over many years of the narrative of the ‘evil and secret’ family courts that do untold harm to ‘innocent’ families for no reason other than caprice and cruelty. See this post for how he wrote about the case of Marie Black, a convicted paedophile in the criminal courts but to Booker simply another in a long line of victims of the family courts.

So I can conclude that stories are important to our psychological make up as a species and that there are only a limited number of ‘basic stories’ . I can also conclude that the family justice system has not been able to grapple with this narrative drive for some very obvious reasons. Predominantly this is the operation of section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act which prohibits publication of details of proceedings held in private – as most proceedings under the Children Act are.

This insistence on privacy is to protect the identity of the children involved becoming widely known – a perfectly proper endeavour. Children did not ask to be born and they certainly did not ask to become involved in public airing of the family’s dirty secrets.

But this has lead to silence from those who know best about how cases are argued, how judges make decisions, why and how families are separated and children adopted. Into that silence, over the years, has come the noise and chatter of many groups and individuals who for a variety of reasons have a strong and appealing narrative about the family justice system. Many of these narratives bear no resemblance to reality but to counter them is next to impossible because of course responsible commentators cannot refer to the details of actual court proceedings involving children.

This has all come to a head recently with the death of Alfie Evans on 28th April 2018. The ‘compassionate’ judgments in this case have been published. But how many are reading them?

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/991621229391044608

Its always interesting to apply a Dunning Fog index test to published text.This is

a weighted average of the number of words per sentence, and the number of long words per word. An interpretation is that the text can be understood by someone who left full-time education at a later age than the index.

To be ‘universally accessible’ the text needs to score no more than 8. To be ‘widely accessible’ no more than 12. Looking at the first judgment in Alfie Evan’s case in February 2018, a random paragraph scores 18.61. The Church Militant article, pictured above, scored 13.29 and of course was accompanied by heart wrending photographs of a little boy and a far more instantly accessible and emotional narrative than that provided by the court judgments.

Many lawyers commented on social media that they could not understand why so many appeared to be by-passing the compassion and legal wisdom of the published judgments and preferring instead to share the more lurid and fantastical stories playing out around Alfie’s life and death. Perhaps this discussion may give them a clue.

Why does this matter? The difference between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ transparency

It matters because those who peddle the strong but wrong narratives have a reach and influence far beyond comments on a screen. No sadder and clearer example can be found than in the Alfie Evans case where hundreds of people marched on a children’s hospital to shout abuse at doctors and nurses. The comments of the Court of Appeal in the final court judgment in April 2018 make for troubling reading:

We were reminded that in the past leading counsel, Mr Stephen Knafler QC, acting then on behalf of both of the parents, deprecated the involvement of legally qualified but not practising lawyers who introduced (to use Mr Knafler’s phrase) a “darker side” to what was otherwise valuable support. It has become apparent to this court, and we referred to it in the postscript to the judgment that we gave on 6 March 2018 in relation to the first appeal, that there was some coordinated organisation of potential medical experts in relation to more than one of these vulnerable families, the same expert being covertly introduced to Kings College Hospital to examine secretly one child in the paediatric intensive care unit there and the next day to go to Alder Hey, again covertly and secretly, to purport to examine Alfie there.
It is not the function of this court now to embark upon an investigation of these matters, but it has become apparent, in particular in terms of the information we have been given about the instruction of the new legal team for the mother today and the drafting of the grounds of appeal upon which Mr Coppel purported to rely at the start of his submissions, (with its unhappy emphasis on prospective criminal proceedings against the staff at Alder Hey) that the representation of the parents may have been infiltrated or compromised by others who purport to act on their behalf. I say no more, but I have in mind the tenuous nature of the direct contact that Mr Coppel and his instructing solicitors had with the mother and yet the clear grounds of appeal that he was instructed to put forward on her behalf, which were, it now transpires, drafted by a lawyer who is not before the court. It may be that some investigation of whether, in this country, at this time, parents who find themselves in these awful circumstances, and are therefore desperate for help and vulnerable to engaging with people whose interests may not in fact assist the parents’ case, needs some wider investigation, but I do no more than draw attention to the concern that this court has at what seems to be an unhelpful development which may, in reality, be contrary to the interests of such parents.

There are many other examples of this kind of attack on the rule of law and the erosion of public trust and confidence in the family justice system. The same names crop up over and over again – Sabine McNeil, John Hemming, Ian Josephs and Christopher Booker for example. They all promote the narrative that parents would be better off leaving the jurisdiction than facing the UK family court system. Josephs and Hemming provide money and accommodation for mothers they persuade to ‘flee’. For many, this proves a disastrous decision.

Sabine McNeil was one of those ‘campaigners’ responsible for promoting the ‘Hampstead Hoax’ which even now continues to cause anxiety to local parents who find themselves branded satanic abusers. The judgment in the fact finding hearing sets out the truth but that judgment can make no inroads into the deluded certainties of those who are convinced that a primary school in Hampstead routinely organised the murder of babies and the wearing of their skin as shoes.

Although Sabine McNeil is now in prison, it is sobering to remember that only in 2014 she was presenting a petition to the European Parliament about the UK family courts, which lead to a visit to London by a European delegation in November of that year.

Also in 2014 the President of the Family Division Sir James Munby made it clear that things had to change, saying:

I am determined to take steps to improve access to and reporting of family proceedings. I am determined that the new Family Court should not be saddled, as the family courts are at present, with the charge that we are a system of secret and unaccountable justice.’

The President issued guidelines for the publication of judgments and the last four years have seen a significant increase in the number published – however, there appears no clear or coherent strategy behind this. Some judges publish a lot, some none at all. Publishing a judgment, as I have commented, doesn’t mean that anyone will read it or that it can stand up to a much more immediate and ‘sexy’ narrative.

So what’s the solution?

Family lawyers and the family justice system need to understand the difference between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ transparency and need to be more willing to promote the first. ‘Transparency’ is about so much more than just allowing passive public scrutiny of processes and outcomes: we must generate a far greater understanding amongst the public about what is behind the decisions made. This becomes an increasingly urgent project as distrust between parents and professionals apparently hardens and increases. For example, in 2017 McFarlane LJ noted with disquiet in the first Bridget Lindley Memorial Lecture:

‘From what I have been told from a range of sources, and from my own exposure on a daily basis to litigants in person seeking to appeal child care decisions, there is a significant and growing distrust shown by some parents in child care lawyers and judges. This is deeply worrying and needs to be addressed if it is not to lead to yet more parents disengaging from working with professionals and the process in a way which can, in my view, only damage their interests rather than enhance them.’

This worrying evidence of growing distrust between parents and professionals was also highlighted by the journalist and Transparency Project member Louise Tickle who delivered the second BLM lecture on March 13th in Birmingham. Louise is an example of the benefits of a particular type of ‘active’ transparency – encouraging intelligent outsiders to examine our current closed systems and highlight where practice and procedure that to family lawyers seems normal, may appear bizarre and even frightening to those on the outside. Her clear conclusion was that the secrecy of the family courts was a disgrace and led to bad practice escaping scrutiny and censure. When writing about family cases her inbox became ‘one long scream of pain’.

Little wonder then that the narratives about the ‘evil secret family courts’ take such firm grasp and no doubt at all about the damage they do – not just to individuals who find themselves taking some very bad advice, but to society as a whole, for respect for the rule of law.

All of us involved in the family justice system have to start getting better at telling our story.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/991627404891377664

Opening up a closed system: The Second Bridget Lindley Memorial Lecture.

EDIT March 29th – you can now read a transcript and listen to the podcast here.

I was very pleased to be in the audience for Louise Tickle’s lecture on March 13th in Birmingham, organised by the Family Justice Council and with an impressive panel of Andrew Pack (AKA Suesspiciousminds), Dr John Simmonds of Coram/BAAF, Mr Justice Keehan and of course the President. The FJC will publish a transcript of the debate and to follow discussions on Twitter, see #fjcdebate.

Since I first met Louise at CPConf2015 she has been an enthusiastic and tireless campaigner for prizing open the closed doors of the family court to shine some light on what goes on, in all our names. This has had an interesting impact – it does seem that more and more, those in the family justice system are realising that intelligent outsiders can actually help us do better, by showing us how practices and procedures that have become solidified and ‘the norm’ for us, appear bizarre and even frightening to those on the outside.

Louise was examining the game changer that is social media – no longer a niche hobby for ‘sad losers’ but something that is changing not just the way we communicate but the things we communicate about – personal, raw stories of human grief can be published by anyone, travel anywhere and be accessed at anytime. Louise began with a powerful story from her own childhood, where she was forced to confront at the age of 8 the ‘implacable authority’ of the adults around her to impose their choices. This left her feeling anguished and powerless. She has never forgot this feeling and it has driven her professional work.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/973613428798644224

What Louise has noticed is the rise in the number of people who contact her about their perceived experiences of injustice in the system. She cannot comment on whether or not these are based in ‘truth’ but to any journalist, this sounds as a warning bell – something is wrong if so many people feel so strongly about it.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/973617776416915456

We have to recognise this and we have to deal with it. There are enormous positives to social media – it allows people to communicate with others that they might never have met and find support. Louise was very appreciative of ‘legal Twitter’ – which was ‘awesome’ and commented about how useful it had been to allow journalists to ‘live tweet’ various proceedings.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/973618913274679296

Letting the light shine into proceedings will increase understanding and hopefully trust, which all appeared to agree was currently at dangerously low levels. The particular issue of recording interactions with professionals was raised and Louise was curt – ‘get over yourselves’. Parents want to record because they don’t trust professionals and they don’t have any power. It hurts not to be trusted but we need to be more open to considering the benefits that could flow from recorded transactions – particularly when there ARE examples of professionals behaving deplorably and making stuff up.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/973620942290243589

Louise also considered the impact on relationships of trust between parents and professionals by what appears to be the promotion of increased ‘surveillance’ of social media output as a way to gather evidence for assessments. Of course we don’t want to miss information that would inform us that a child is in danger, but given that we have finite resources of both time and emotional energy, do we really want to be directing both to increased surveillance, rather than building up relationships of trust? Perhaps the saddest comment of the night, for me, came from Dr Simmonds who remarked sadly that what underpinned his training as a social worker – the creation of relationships with others – seemed now so difficult to achieve.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/973623103753474048

Louise concluded by considering the ambit of Article 10. It appears that lawyers often overlook its essential component – freedom of expression includes the freedom to complain! She was horrified by the ‘arrogance’ of some local authorities who appeared to think that their work in child protection gave them immunity from scrutiny. Reporting on family cases was the hardest work she had ever done, as the fears of being held in contempt of court were very real. It was only with pro bono help from lawyers such as Lucy Reed of The Transparency Project that she was able to get permission from the court to tell ‘Annie’s’ story.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/973624643415404545

Louise was stark in her assessment. No other kind of proceedings, save those involved in issues of national security, permitted the kind of lack of scrutiny that is seen day in, day out in the family courts. It is an outrage.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/973626919047585792

We then turned to the Panel for comment. All agreed with Louise’s assessment that the State should be held to account – but how to do it? That’s the problem. The discussion ranged from worry about identification of children and the stigma that might then follow, the problems in expecting an overworked judiciary to anonymise and publish judgments and whether or not we should consider further accreditation for journalists who wish to report on family proceedings.

As Lucy Reed commented, there are enormous benefits to letting people in – to allow us to benefit from their fresh insights. The President agreed.

https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/973646079811039232

So, as ever, more questions than answers were raised. But without asking the questions, we will never find the answers and for too long the family justice system has been allowed to proceed on a secretive and inside track which has allowed bad practice to harden unchallenged. I was impressed by the quality of the conversation and its refreshing openness and honesty. That we are even having this discussion is testament not just to the hard work of journalists like Louise but also the lawyers and legal bloggers who take the time to communicate their unease. And at the helm of course is the President.

I was very sad to be told I could not live tweet the location of the lecture due to security concerns for the President. I struggle to understand how anyone would wish to interfere with his central and now long repeated message – we need to shine a light on bad practice and we do that by talking more, not less. It will be interesting to see where our new President takes us, once Sir James Munby steps down in April.

I leave you with the words of one tweeter

Please, please clone him before he retires

— xxx (@Az456Xxx) March 13, 2018

Happy Families – The conversations we are not having about adoption – Feedback from London Event

On Saturday October 28th 2017 we gathered again, this time in London, for the ‘oral installation performance’ about adoption and the problems caused by lack of honest and open conversation about its meaning and consequences.

The main questions Pamela and I hoped to pose were these:

Can we make happy families?
Can we impose identity on a child?
Do we need to ‘rescue’ children or should we be trying to support unhappy families?
What is really at the heart of our child protection system and adoption and why aren’t we talking about this?

Again, I was really pleased that the audience seemed keen to talk and the conversation was lively and wide ranging. It was also great to finally meet in person some of those I have been ‘talking’ to on line for some time now.

I hope that the conversations we started in Bristol on September 23rd and in London on October 28th can carry on elsewhere. If anyone reading this would like us to come and perform in your area, let me or Pamela know!

Themes emerging

A member of the audience recorded the following as those issues which attracted her attention:

Is there another side to the issue? The talk seemed to imply that adoption is negative, but if so, what’s the alternative?
Who is going to do the research into outcomes? How is it to be funded?
Adoption seems to involve ideological judgement and even social engineering, and is used as a solution to problems within the care system generally. Why isn’t there conversation about all the possible consequences, good and bad, short and long-term, for everyone involved?
Why isn’t there legal and financial help for, say, the parents of split siblings, to enable a sense of family to persist?
Social media has raised the profile and voice of adopters, but again, it is usually the articulate middle classes who benefit. How can this be made more of a level platform?
How successful is the assessment process at preparing adopters to be parents?
Are support services adequate in the era of austerity, particularly in view of the needs that may arise in adopted children from different backgrounds?
What qualifies a parent for serious intervention such as psychotherapy? There is no clinical criteria, and the distribution of these resources seems to depend on how wealthy and/or how vocal you are.
Is the problem that research may be carried out but is unheeded by policy makers? If so, is it because of (lack of) money? Or prevailing ideology? Or lack of belief in public discourse by the general public?
The UK concept of ‘childhood’ is adult-led, which is behind the times compared to much European thinking. Should the UK widen its perspective?I]
Is it worth saying that you can’t prevent the death of every child deemed to be at risk, regardless of any external circumstances? There would and will always be cases like Baby P, leading to knee-jerk reactions by the media, and potentially causing as much harm as good.
How do you counteract false narratives that are propagated by sections of the media for political ends?
Should there be a set timeline for adoption or not? If yes, what should it be? If no, how do you set parameters?
Is there a wider question about the way society undervalues diversity and views disadvantage?
How can we stop money being wasted by the government on high-profile, ‘scattergun’ interventions which are often shown to have achieved nothing when they are evaluated by practitioners?
How big a problem is trafficking of children? Can we believe the narratives in the media?

Comments from the audience

I have just started my MA in Social Work and this has made me aware of some disturbing elephants in the room and what sort of actions I need to think about supporting.

I found the method of presentation simple, powerful, effective. I thought Your performance Sarah was excellent. It was gripping. I think you didn’t need to try and answer the q’s ( except the first that was framed firmly as a q to you).

It didn’t make me think afresh about adoption as i already do but it was good to be able to ‘come out’ on those views in a public debate. My sense is that there has been a big shift in recent years to voices accepted as credible (rather than othered as disgruntled or extremists – some of course, being actually so) being able to question current adoption policy & practice.

I think you could have done even more to engage w evidence in support of adoption & eg the idea that it was precisely because Jobs was removed & adopted that he developed capacity & opportunity to have such an impact. Tho u said u had no views the choices about what material used & ansa’s given suggested u had strong views that much is broken & dysfunctional, just not on how to achieve change & what good wld like.

Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum v Princess Haya [2022] EWFC 16

A major shift is required in culture and process to increase transparency

My comments

The Law

What the parties wanted

Conclusion

The right of journalists and bloggers to attend court – yes they can.

I don’t want journalists to report about my hearing. What can I do?

But what if I want to exclude journalists before the hearing starts?

What is the Press Association Injunction Alert Service?

The notification system

The Practice Direction 12I and Practice Note

So how do I know who and how to serve?

Further Reading

REPORTING RESTRICTION ORDER

EXPLANATION

ORDER

SCHEDULE 1

SCHEDULE 2

SCHEDULE 3

SCHEDULE 4

SCHEDULE 1

SCHEDULE 2

SCHEDULE 3

SCHEDULE 4

Golden rules

Why is it so complicated?

Why can’t I just talk about my case?

Important laws you need to know

Section 97 of the Children Act 1989

Section 12 Administration of Justice Act 1960.

I want to talk about my case at a conference or to a journalist

How does the court approach applications for publicity?

Rule 12.73 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010

Further reading

Justice must be seen to be done

Lack of scrutiny can have terrible consequences.

Lack of scrutiny allows stale cliche to become unchallenged truth

We are doing this in the child’s best interests, which are paramount.

But what about the risks to children of increased openness?

Conclusions

Further Reading

Why does this matter? The difference between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ transparency

So what’s the solution?

Further Reading

EDIT March 29th – you can now read a transcript and listen to the podcast here.

Themes emerging

Comments from the audience