Jack Straw to lift secrecy over family courts

The Government is preparing to open up family courts to greater scrutiny in a success for The Sunday Telegraph's Stop the Secrecy campaign.

By Ben Leapman
Last Updated: 4:03PM BST 25 Oct 2008, Telegraph UK

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, is expected to announce next month that he will take steps to increase public and media access to the workings of family courts in England and Wales.

This newspaper has reported on a series of cases in which parents have had babies or young children removed for forced adoption in questionable circumstances.

Hearings are held behind closed doors and parents whose children are taken are legally barred from discussing their cases with friends, journalists or their MP, leading to complaints that miscarriages of justice may be going unnoticed.

In one case, a couple whose two baby daughters were taken for forced adoption were told they would never see them again even after they were cleared of abuse allegations.

In another case, a professional married couple had their baby taken because the mother had a history of mental illness and the father had been "confrontational'' towards social workers. In two cases, mothers whose babies were removed were refused written copies of the judgments, preventing them from launching appeals.

Last year Mr Straw's predecessor, Lord Falconer, abandoned plans to open up family courts to greater scrutiny after children's charities opposed the move, claiming that it was more important to protect children's privacy.

However, sources close to Mr Straw said he was determined to act on the issue. He told the Labour party conference last month that he wanted to see the court system "explaining more, hiding less".

He promised a package of measures which would be about "lifting the veil which sometimes keeps justice from view".

And he said: "In the very sensitive area of the family courts, I think we can shed more light whilst preserving the imperative of the welfare of the child."

The Government has already scrapped a policy of offering cash rewards to councils which increased the number of children they placed for adoption, after complaints that the targets gave social workers an incentive to focus on "easy to place" children – babies with no health problems – rather than older, more troubled children in greater need of help.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/3258530/Jack-Straw-to-lift-secrecy-over-family-courts.html

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