Landmark new rules to bring transparency to family courts

Journalists and legal bloggers are to be allowed to report on family court cases across England and Wales from early next year.

Transparency will no longer be restricted to pilot courts and will be permanent.

Journalists will be able to request a transparency order in all family courts to allow them to report what they see and hear, access key documents and speak to families - provided they keep them anonymous.

Previously, journalists and legal bloggers could attend family courts but were limited in what they could report.

A transparency pilot is currently operating in just under half the family courts in England and Wales.

Judges will retain the power to turn down requests but there is a presumption in favour of reporting.

The change has been approved by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and will come into force on 27 January 2025.

The rollout will be staggered, and transparency will first apply to public law – care cases – then to private law, where parents are separating, and lastly to magistrates' courts.

Family courts have the greatest powers to intervene in private family lives.

They determine whether children should be removed from their parents, or which parent children should live with.

As the recent case of Sara Sharif shows, those decisions can affect people's lives forever. A family court decided to place Sara with her father and stepmother, who were found guilty of her murder.

A High Court Judge decided to release documents covering that family case, but said the judge's name should not be published. Journalists have been granted the right to appeal against that decision, which will be heard in early January.