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Journalism, Judges and Justice – a crisis in court reporting?
A report on Open Justice from the Chartered Institute of Journalists warns of “an unprecedented, and sustained, attack on the journalism profession, which has taken a toll on our ability to cover courts, and report on their function”. Its author is Tim Crook, Vice...
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Family Court Reporting Watch
Correcting, clarifying or commenting on media reports of family court cases Explaining or commenting on published judgments of family court cases Highlighting other transparency news MEDIA (MIS)REPORTS OF FAMILY COURT CASES The Telegraph - Reported the Court of Appeal...
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Three examples of how not to do family justice
This week involves a trio of disastrous cases where things have gone wrong and judges have explained why. The first case is Re L (A Child) [2017] EWHC 3707 (Fam) (22 December 2017), which opens with Mr Justice Francis saying : At some point during the night of a...
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Litigant’s claim struck out for discussing case during break in giving evidence – a cautionary tale
It’s one of the cardinal rules of court procedure: once you’ve entered the witness box and started to give evidence, you mustn't discuss the case with anyone outside court, if there’s a break in the proceedings, until you’ve finished giving evidence. While the hearing...
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Meal ticket for life bid backfires – or does it?
The Telegraph is one of a number of newspapers to report on the decision of the Court of Appeal to refuse the appeal of Mrs Waggott asking for an increase in her divorce award, and to allow the appeal of Mr Waggot, asking for the duration of her maintenance award to...
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The responsible use of attachment assessments for court
This is a guest post by Rebecca Carr-Hopkins and Tracy Rydin-Orwin (ICI trainers) and Andrea Landini (Director, Family ReIations Institute). They are responding to our post on the case of Re C [2018] EWFC B9, where a psychologist's evidence was based on a clinical...
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Why doesn’t the family court punish professionals who break the rules?
On March 25th we considered what happened to people who refused to abide by orders made by the family courts and the powers family courts have to send them to prison in punishment. That blog post prompted comments along the lines of what happened when the...
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Family Court Reporting Watch
Correcting, clarifying or commenting on media reports of family court cases Explaining or commenting on published judgments of family court cases Highlighting other transparency news MEDIA (MIS)REPORTS OF FAMILY COURT CASES BBC News - Reported a BBC 5 Live...
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SERGEI AND YULIA SKRIPAL AND THE COURT OF PROTECTION
What are a person’s best interests in a decision to permit use of samples of body fluids or tissue for a purpose which is neither of direct therapeutic benefit to the person him or herself, or an act of direct altruism towards another person? The law of mental...
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Fit for the future: transforming the court and tribunal estate – the Transparency Project’s response to the MOJ consultation
The Ministry of Justice recently ran a consultation on the future strategy for HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in its approach to court and tribunal estate reform, viewed in the context of the current digital modernisation programme. The consultation was said to...
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