Historic new rules to bring transparency in family courts

Journalists and legal bloggers will be allowed to report on family court cases in England and Wales from early next year.

Transparency will no longer be limited to pilot courts and will be permanent.

Journalists will be able to request transparency orders in all family courts so they can report what they see and hear, access key documents and speak to families – provided they keep them anonymous.

Previously, journalists and legal bloggers could participate in family courts, but their reporting was limited.

A transparency pilot is currently running in just under half of the family courts in England and Wales.

Judges will retain the power to deny requests but there is a presumption in favor of reporting.

The change has been approved by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and will come into effect on 27 January 2025.

The rollout will be sequential, and transparency will apply first to public law – care matters – then private law, where parents are separating, and finally magistrates’ courts.

Family courts have the greatest powers to interfere in private family life.

They determine whether children should be separated from their parents, or which parent the children should live with.

as of late Sara Sharif case Shows, those decisions can affect people’s lives forever. A family court decided to place Sara with her father and stepmother, who were found guilty of her murder.

A High Court judge decided to release documents covering that family case, but said the judge’s name should not be published. Journalists have been given the right to appeal the decision, which will be heard in early January.

Over the past two years BBC News has shown how transparency orders can work to highlight important stories of vital public interest, while maintaining the privacy of families.

In early 2023, the BBC used orders report cases At Leeds Family Court.

The drive towards transparency has made it easier for the BBC receive information In May 2023, during a family hearing regarding Finley Bowden, the child was returned by a family magistrate to the parents who had murdered him.

Using Transparency, the BBC was able to report on how a young mother in Cardiff spent November 2023 £30,000 in family court To protect her young daughter from a convicted pedophile – her ex-husband.

MP Harriet Harman said the BBC’s reporting had revealed a loophole in the law that politicians had missed. She set out to change the law and had an amendment to the current King’s Speech.

Transparency also allowed us Expose Baby Elsa, abandoned in a London park on the coldest night of the year, was the third child of the same parents.

Using Transparency Emma Glasbey of the BBC’s Look North told the story Of an abuse victim whose children were taken away.

It was also used report On the Harehills family case which led to riots in Leeds this July.

PA Media’s Calum Parke has reported on a number of family cases using transparency orders.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s Hannah Summers uses transparency to report complex private law cases – including her own debated successfully The husband accused of rape will be identified.

Tortoise’s Louise Tickle has campaigned for greater transparency for many years. Transparency was shown in their reporting Some judges oppose this campaign Towards greater openness.

Lucy Reed is the founder of the Casey Transparency Project, a charity set up to improve public understanding of the family courts.

He said the extension was “a huge step forward” but “there is still a lot of cultural and practical change required before the Family Court can say it is operating as transparently as possible”.