The following extracts from a paper given by Justice Munby (High Court Judge) at Jordan's Family Law Conference, in October 2005 may be of interest to those who are calling for reform in the Family Court System.
"ACCESS TO AND REPORTING OF FAMILY PROCEEDINGS - A paper given at Jordan's Family Law Conference, October 2005, London
There is much wrong with our system and the time has come for us to recognise that fact and to face up to it honestly. If we do not we risk forfeiting public confidence. The newspapers - and I mean newspapers generally, for this is a theme taken up with increasing emphasis by all sectors of the press - make uncomfortable reading for us. They suggest that confidence is already ebbing away. We ignore the media at our peril. We delude ourselves if we dismiss the views of journalists as unrepresentative of public opinion or as representative only of sectors of public opinion we think we can ignore. Responsible voices are raised in condemnation of our system. We need to take note. We need to act. And we need to act now.' Nor do I make any apologies for repeating something else I had said just a week or two earlier (Re B (A Child) (Disclosure) [2004] EWHC 411 (Fam), [2004] 2 FLR 142, at [101] and [103]):
......'We must... have the humility to recognise - and to acknowledge - that public debate, and the jealous vigilance of an informed media, have an important role to play in exposing past miscarriages of justice and in preventing possible future miscarriages of justice ... We cannot afford to proceed on the blinkered assumption that there have been no miscarriages of justice in the family justice system. This is something that has to be addressed with honesty and candour if the family justice system is not to suffer further loss of public confidence. Open and public debate in the media is essential ....
..... I repeat what I have said on previous occasions. The workings of the family justice system and, very importantly, the views about the system of the mothers and fathers caught up in it (and, I would add, the views of the children) are, as Balcombe LJ once put it (Re W (Wardship: Discharge: Publicity) [1995] 2 FLR 466, at 474), 'matters of public interest which can and should be discussed publicly'.....
..... Many of the issues litigated in the family justice system require open and informed public debate in the media, which at present, all too often, they do not get. It is important in a free society (see Harris v Harris, Attorney-General v Harris [2001] 2 FLR 895, at [360]-[389]) that parents who feel aggrieved at their experiences of the family justice system should be able to express their views publicly about what they conceive to be failings on the part of individual judges or failings in the judicial system:
We are grateful to Jack for bringing this to our notice