Family Court reporting allowed: What will it mean?
As the reader may be aware, journalists are now allowed to report from family courts in England and Wales. But what exactly does this mean for anyone involved in family court proceedings?
For some years now the family justice system has been endeavouring to be more open about what it does and the way it works. As part of this process, a ‘reporting pilot’ has been running in several courts for the past two years, testing out new rules allowing accredited journalists to report on what they see and hear in the family courts. The pilot has been considered a success, and was rolled out across all courts, from the 27th of January.
But this does not mean that any journalist can attend any hearing, and report upon everything they see and hear.
As mentioned above, the journalist must be accredited, meaning that they must carry a UK Press Card (the court also has a discretion to allow non-accredited journalists). Authorised lawyers (‘legal bloggers’) may also attend.
When a journalist attends a hearing, and wishes to report, they should ask the judge to make a ‘Transparency Order’. The Transparency Order will set out what must not be reported (without the express permission of the court), such as the names and addresses of any children involved and their parents, and any other information likely to identify a child.
The court has a discretion to exclude journalists from a particular hearing, or part of a hearing, but this should only be done for specific reasons. The court may also determine that there should be no reporting, or restricted or delayed reporting of all, or part, of the proceedings.
The Transparency Order will permit the parties to discuss the proceedings with a journalist and, subject to the terms of the Transparency Order, permit the journalist to quote parties in their reporting.
The Transparency Order will also set out what court documents journalists are entitled to be provided with and quote from. If a journalist wishes to see any other document not permitted to be disclosed by the Transparency Order, they must apply to the court for permission.
When deciding whether to make a Transparency Order the court will give special consideration to certain categories of case, for example where matters relevant to the case are subject to criminal charges, active investigation, or proceedings, where reporting may cause prejudice to those proceedings; or cases where it is particularly difficult to achieve anonymity for the child.
As will be seen, press reporting of family cases will be subject to a number of restrictions. However, there will no doubt still be many parties who are anxious about their case being reported. By their nature, family law cases involve very private matters, which most people would not want to be made public.
If this applies to you then you should raise your concerns with the court, or with your lawyer if you have one, before the court makes the Transparency Order.
But it should be said that as a generalisation the chances of your case being reported are likely to be quite slim. There are only so many journalists, and many newsrooms are under considerable financial pressure. Over a quarter of a million new cases are started in the family courts of England and Wales each year, and the likelihood of a journalist attending yours is probably going to be very low.
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