THE LAW stating that family law cases are heard in private was breached by the Courts Service for a period yesterday when the full names of family law litigants were listed on its website.
The website offers information to the public on court procedures and judgments, including the lists of pending cases.
All family law cases are normally listed with initials only, in compliance with different pieces of family law legislation which specify that all family law cases are heard “otherwise than in public”, normally referred to as the “in camera rule”.
However, yesterday Dublin Circuit Civil Court’s county registrar’s list, which fixes dates for cases to be heard, contained the full names of all the litigants in 20 cases listed for the setting of dates between January 11th next and March 31st.
The Courts Service apologised for the error and said in a statement: “Due to staff shortages, and the additional complexity of managing and operating the administration of the courts caused by yesterday’s severe weather; a human error resulted in one of the lists associated with family law not being listed in ‘initials’ format only. When the Courts Service was informed of this we immediately removed the list.
“We apologise for any inconvenience this mistake may have caused to any persons involved.”