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Keeping mum

21 October 2016 / Kate Molan
Issue: 7719 / Categories: Features , Family
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Kate Molan reviews helpful new guidance to protect the anonymity of children in the family courts

  • Agenda exploring transparency in the family court continues.
  • Judgment dealing with applications for reporting restriction orders coincides with draft guidance on the anonymisation of judgments.

The welfare of children has always been at the forefront of the family justice system. In May 2015 Lucy Cummin and I wrote an article in this journal, “Keep it in the family” which was subsequently republished by LexisNexis for circulation at the Resolution conference (see 165 NLJ 7644, p 13).

The article detailed how the President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, had issued a consultation paper aimed at understanding whether there was a need for the family courts to become more transparent as a way of instilling greater public confidence in the family justice system. The consultation dealt with four main issues, namely the publication of judgments, court listing descriptions, disclosure of confidential documents and hearings in public.

At the time of our article, the Association of Lawyers for

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NEWS
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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