The British family courts were opened last week to the press, writes AFUA HIRSCH
IT WAS A historic day for the legal system, one that pushed back the boundaries of privacy after years of heated debate.
Yet the brave new world that meant reporters were allowed access to family courts for the first time yesterday appears to have come as something of a shock – especially to many of those working within them.
Having eventually found a court at the Royal Courts of Justice where a case was about to start, it soon became clear that none of the proceedings could be reported anyway.
Although one High Court judge, Mr Justice Ryder, said in enthusiastic terms that he would be reluctant to exclude the press, he also pointed out that the new rules had not changed the law. No details can be automatically reported unless a judge gives his specific permission – and permission did not come until later.
Does it matter that the press still cannot report what is taking place behind these, now partially open, doors?
In 2007 the family courts heard 20,000 cases concerning care, supervision and emergency protection of children, where orders were made that judges have described as the most powerful they have done since the abolition of capital punishment. In total there were 200,000 family law court hearings, and journalists were excluded, along with everyone else.
Almost all of these cases will now be open to reporters, according to Jack Straw, the justice secretary, “to ensure a change in the culture and practice of all courts towards greater openness”.
For a journalist familiar with the courts but never before allowed to hear family cases, this was a historic change.
The 200,000 family law cases each year in England and Wales are heard in hundreds of courts, from magistrates’ courts up to the High Court’s family division.
The public is barred in all cases, and up to now, only magistrates’ courts were open to the press.
Family law covers a wide range. It includes public applications where children are taken into care or put under an emergency protection order.
Private applications involve parents’ disputes about upbringing of their children, forced marriage, abduction, adoption, divorce and “ancillary relief” – financial settlements in marriage disputes.
A number of high-profile cases, including allegations that children had been taken into care as a result of a miscarriage of justice, fuelled calls for transparency.
Reporting of family court proceedings, while now allowed by the ministry of justice, remains subject to prior law such as the Children’s Act and requires express permission from the judge presiding.
Among the scores of cases heard in Mr Justice Ryder’s court, one involved four children who were wards of the court and had been abducted to Pakistan, with serious concerns about their wellbeing.
In another, a mother told the court that she had ceased allowing contact between her daughter and the father because he had been guilty of sexually inappropriate behaviour.
She complained that when the local authority investigated her allegations, the results had been inconclusive, yet a previous court had allowed the father access to the girl anyway.
Another case concerned forced marriage. Many of the cases raised important issues in which the judge agreed the public has a legitimate interest, with outcomes crucial to the wellbeing of children and vulnerable adults.
These are the issues that the family courts deal with day in, day out. In order to write this article, however, the Guardian had to wait until the judge had finished dealing with urgent cases and then present an application to report what had taken place.
He gave his permission.
There is no guarantee that all judges will be so welcoming of public scrutiny – in each case, whether the media is allowed in and whether it is allowed to report any of what its members see is up to each individual judge in each case.
How judges decide remains limited by an unchanged law that falls heavily on the side of privacy. If the public was hoping the press could now provide genuine insight into what happens in the family courts and how it affects the most vulnerable, they may be sorely disappointed. – (Guardian service)
Carol Coulter adds: In the week that the UK family courts opened to the public and the media, a window into the Irish family courts closed.
The Courts Service Family Law Reporting project published its last issue of Family Law Matters, which began in spring 2007. Reports of family law cases, statistics and articles by individuals and organisations involved were carried in the seven issues, which were available in hard copy and on the Courts Service website.
This was a pilot project and the board of the Courts Service agreed to continue it for a further year after its first year, when it was run by this writer. That period has now come to an end.
Since the first issue, 150 reports of family law cases have been published from all three courts jurisdictions, High, Circuit and District, covering divorce, judicial separation, nullity, guardianship, custody, access, maintenance and partition.
An index of all the issues featured in Family Law Matters will shortly be available on the Courts Service website, where all issues of the journal can be found, at www.courts.ie