News and Press
Transparency in the Family Courts

Following Justice Secretary, Jack Straw's decision to allow the media to report legal proceedings in the Family Courts in order to increase the transparency of family law cases, the Ministry of Justice is now working on a very tight time table to implement the change by April 2009.

TLT's David Woodward, who has over 30 years' experience as a family lawyer, is a member of the Law Society's Family Law Committee and whom is independently recognised for his family law expertise, comments:

"I recently received a briefing from the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) which made it clear that the press would have access to the family courts by April 2009. The MOJ is working at great speed to amend the Procedural Rules, prepare protocols for press access and to consider how to accredit members of the press.

This is, understandably, of great concern to those whose personal issues are being discussed in the family courts, particularly to those individuals with a high media profile, for example leading business figures and celebrities. There is a particular risk that in these cases reporting could be inaccurate causing significant reputational damage. There is also the risk that commercially sensitive information, which is pertinent to a financial settlement, is either deliberately or inadvertently disclosed through media reporting. To mitigate these risks we could expect to see an increase in cases settled out of court.

An alternative way of achieving transparency, and one which would not compromise the anonymity of those individuals involved in cases, would be for the Family Courts to publish anonymised judgments of all cases on the internet. This would strike a balance between the benefits of transparency for the general public and the right to privacy of the individual."