A victory for common sense

A victory for common sense

Last week, 702 lawyers, including 38 QCs, signed a letter calling on the Government to drop its Justice and Security Bill, allowing judges to sit in secret on cases involving national security. According to the lawyers, allowing judges to hold their hearings behind closed doors would be “dangerous”, “contrary to the rule of law”, would “erode the core principles of our civil justice system” and would “fatally undermine” the right to a fair trial and open justice. What the lawyers did not say, however, was that we already have a devastating confirmation of all these points in the workings of our family courts, in too many of those tens of thousands of cases every year involving the removal of children from their parents by council social workers.

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Open up family court hearings, says senior judge

A senior judge has made an important ruling in favour of transparency in the family courts.