President issues consultation paper on transparency

Practical Law UK Legal Update 7-578-4506 (Approx. 4 pages)

President issues consultation paper on transparency

Transparency in the family courts: publication of judgments practice guidance

Munby P invites comments on how the practice guidance on publication of judgments issued in January 2014 is working and seeks any suggestions for improvement. For further information about the guidance, see Legal update, President's practice guidance on publication of judgments.

Effect of increase in number of family judgments published

The practice guidance has led to a significant increase in the number of family judgments appearing on BAILII. Munby P would like to hear views on the impact of this. In particular:

The short and long term impact on children and families. For example, the risk of a child accessing a judgment later in life and learning previously unknown details about his background.
The impact on local authorities and other professionals.
Any change in the level and quality of news and reporting about the family justice system.

Improving listing of family cases

Views are sought on whether the listing of family cases can be improved so that court lists are more informative about the subject matter of cases. For example, a catchphrase or a few catchwords could be added after each case number to indicate what the case is about. Suggestions are sought on appropriate catchphrases or catchwords.

To facilitate understanding of case numbers, a definitive list of identifying codes for the courts where family proceedings are issued will be published shortly.

Disclosing documents to the media

Munby P will issue further guidance about disclosing certain categories of document to the media, subject to appropriate safeguards.

He is considering a pilot project under which documents prepared by advocates, including case summaries, position statements, skeleton arguments, threshold and fact-finding documents could be prepared in a form that could be released to members of the accredited media. In some cases, a judge may decide to release an expert report to the media, following submissions. Disclosable expert reports would be limited to reports "in the hard sciences" in the first instance. Reports may need to be redacted or anonymised before being released. Experts would need to be informed before disclosure takes place. Experts' willingness to produce reports that may be disclosed to the media would be carefully monitored.

The documents would remain confidential unless ordered otherwise, so that copying, disclosure or onward transmission would be a contempt.

Munby P hopes that such disclosure would facilitate understanding and assist the media to quickly decide whether they wish to attend a case. He seeks views on the following:

The categories of documents that should be disclosable.
Whether access to the disclosable documents should be limited to media representatives attending the hearing, or extend to any member of the accredited media entitled to attend the hearing.
Desirable restrictions and safeguards.

Hearing some family cases in public

Views are sought about hearing family cases in public. In particular:

What types of family case might be appropriate for a public hearing?
What restrictions and safeguards would be appropriate?
What form might a pilot project take?
What are the implications of section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 not applying to cases heard in public?
What are the implications of losing the confidentiality that attaches to documents and information in financial remedy cases when the material is read in open court?

Views, comments and suggestions should be sent to [email protected].

Source

Transparency - The Next Steps, A Consultation Paper issued by the President of the Family Division on 15 August 2014.

End of Document

Also Found In

Resource ID 7-578-4506

Published on 20-Aug-2014

Resource Type Legal update: archive

Jurisdictions

England
Wales