Family court transparency

New research from Cardiff University’s School of Law and Politics suggests that guidance given to judges to routinely publish their judgments is not being consistently followed, leaving the public with a patchy understanding of the family justice system in England and Wales.

Issued in 2014, the guidance was intended to address perceptions, especially in the media, of ‘secrecy’ and ‘justice behind closed doors’ when important decisions are made about children in family courts. These claims arise from the way that court rules ensure most family cases are held in private, to protect children and other vulnerable parties, and are subject to reporting restrictions preventing such parties being identified.

A better understanding of the family justice system

The guidance requires judges to send fully anonymised versions of their judgments in certain types of case to BAILII, a freely accessible legal research website. The intention was to enable both the press and the public to have a better understanding of the family justice system, by making it more transparent.

However, following concerns expressed about poor anonymisation and some risks of jigsaw identification, and also observations that relatively few cases seemed to be appearing on BAILII, an evaluation of the effects of the guidance was undertaken by Cardiff University’s School of Law and Politics, funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

Analysing 837 judgments that were published in the first two years following the guidance, the research found that only 27 judges and 12 courts sent in more than ten cases each to BAILII during this period, revealing significant local variations in following the guidance. As a result, the media and the public are able to read more about judicial and social work decision making in certain parts of England and Wales than others.

Dr Julie Doughty, Cardiff University’s School of Law and Politics, who led the research said: “The judgments now published provide more information about the role of the family courts than was available prior to the guidance, but there are inconsistences in the way courts have responded which can present a confusing and not necessarily representative picture of the system as a whole.”

The research team also gathered views from some judges, journalists, organisations and representative groups with an interest in family justice, about the operation of the guidance and the effect it has had on them and on public understanding of family courts.

The publication of this report is timely, in the context of a senior family court judge recently emphasising the importance of public legal education and making family court processes more transparent, thereby reducing complexity and time spent on cases at later stages, as well as improving access to justice.

The report, Transparency through publication of family court judgments: An evaluation of the responses to, and effects of, judicial guidance on publishing family court judgments involving children and young people’, by Julie Doughty, Alice Twaite and Paul Magrath, is available to read in full here.