One of England’s most senior judges has pledged to expose family courts to the “glare of publicity” to avoid miscarriages of justice and restore public confidence.
Sir James Munby, president of the Family Division of the High Court, said parents of children taken into care must no longer be gagged by the courts and journalists should be allowed to report on proceedings.
He said that in the absence of the death penalty, removing a child from their parents is one of the most “drastic” actions a judge can take consequences that can last a lifetime.
In a speech to the Society of Editors in London, he said that judges must accept that “human justice is inevitably fallible” and mistakes are made.
He said that both the family courts, which deal with divorce cases and adoption, and the Court of Protection, which deals with decisions about people who lack the mental capacity to make their own decisions, must be more transparent.
An important question is whether judge Mumby means that the courts should be more sympathetic to abusive mothers or whether this is a genuine attempt to reduce the incidence of children being unnecessarily removed from parents.
It is not clear, however, whether Judge Mumby is thinking purely about mothers as victims. Fathers are still likely to be marginalised because the media journalists are themselves influenced by the mandatory gender studies they do in their journalism qualification. Gender studies demonizes men and particularly fathers rights acivists. This is one area where change could be fruitful for fathers human rights. More sympathetic stories for fathers in the media will change public thinking.