Published 08 January 2013 | Standard notes SN06102
Authors:
Catherine Fairbairn
Topic:
Children and families, Family law
Cases in family courts involving children are not open to the public in order to protect the identity of the children concerned, and reporting on such cases is very limited. Following calls for the press and public to be allowed to attend family proceedings, changes were made to court rules, effective from April 2009. Duly accredited media representatives (but not the wider public) are now able to attend certain family proceedings held in private, subject to a power for the court to direct their exclusion.
The court rule changes did not alter the statutory reporting restrictions for family proceedings, meaning that the media are able to report only limited information about the proceedings they are now able to attend. Provisions intended to amend these reporting restrictions were enacted in Part 2 of the Children, Schools and Families Act 2010 (CSFA 2010) but these provisions have not been brought into effect. In July 2011, the House of Commons Justice Committee recommended that Part 2 of the CSFA 2010 should not be implemented. In October 2011, the Government accepted the Committee’s recommendation. The Crime and Courts Bill [HL], which is currently before Parliament, would repeal Part 2.
In its interim report published in March 2011, the Family Justice Review expressed the view that people, including the media, should be able to attend court hearings but not be allowed to do or say anything that might identify the parties in public. The Final Report acknowledged that the question of transparency and public confidence in the family courts and the issue of media access was a complex area requiring further consideration by Government.
In September 2011, the Ministry of Justice published its review of the Family Courts Information Pilot which had tested the feasibility of providing written judgments to parties in certain types of family cases and posting anonymised versions on a public website. The review found support for greater transparency, but also concerns about the protection of the privacy of the families involved.
This note deals generally with the law in England and Wales.