Charity issues guidance on publication of judgments about family matters

The Transparency Project has published a new guide designed to help parties in the family justice system “navigate the complicated issue of publishing judgments about private family matters”.

The guide is directed at families and the professionals working with them, to help them think through the possible pros and cons, and the potential practical consequences of publication, the charity said.

“Rather than focusing just on issues of anonymisation and jigsaw identification, it aims to involve families in the decision making process about publication, and with the process of anonymising judgments so that privacy protection is robust and effective,” it added.

Family law barrister Lucy Reed, Chair of The Transparency Project said: "We identified that there were no materials for families involved in family court cases to help them understand when, why and how judgments in their case might be published. Our guide aims to fill that gap.

“It isn't practical or appropriate for every judgment in every family court case to be published, but we hope that it will both help make sure judgments are reliably anonymised before publication, and help families and professionals to support publication where that can be achieved without jeopardising the family's privacy or welfare.”

Reed said the project hoped that the guide would be used by lawyers, social workers and children's guardians to talk through questions of publication of judgments with the children and parents they are working with, “so that safe transparency can be facilitated where possible, and unnecessary anxiety avoided."

Work on Publication of Family Court Judgments - A guidance note for families & professionals, was funded by a grant from the Legal Education Foundation. It is not judicially approved guidance. The document can be found at http://www.transparencyproject.org.uk/resources in pdf format.