Opening up the Family courts: Transparency in the Family court and the Court of Protection

" There are many challenges facing the media. Some involve what are ultimately political questions on which it would not be appropriate for a judge to comment. So you will understand if I say nothing about them. Some have to do with the media’s ability to access and report court proceedings. Of these wider questions again I propose to say nothing. I confine what I have to say to the specific issue of the media relationship with the family courts and the Court of Protection.

The starting point, of course, is the fundamentally important principle of open justice, the principle that anyone should be able to enter, watch and report the proceedings in the courts. That principle is so clear that it requires neither proof nor elaboration. But – and there is always a but – it is necessarily subject to exceptions..."