Members of the Family Division’s Transparency Implementation Group (TIG) were banned from tweeting during group meetings or discussing the meetings with others, at the TIG’s first conference on 15 December, 2021.
President of the Family Division Andrew McFarlane who chairs the group, said real-time tweets about the meetings and any conversations outside of the gatherings would be “unhelpful”, in minutes published on 5 January, 2022. The statement appears to be an attempt to stem public discussions about goings-on at the meetings.
In a section titled “Etiquette” members were told: “Live tweeting, or the discussion of specific details from meetings would be unhelpful as this could occur before firm conclusions had been reached, and could therefore impact on the group’s ability to have open, candid discussions or result in mixed
messaging.”
The minutes also outlined a proposal for four new sub-groups: press attendance and reporting; data collection; media engagement; and the anonymisation and publication of judgments.
However the minutes did not mention the judiciary’s publication of a controversial family court transcript in November which was taken down following concerns about the graphic nature of the document.
No explanation has yet been given about how the judgment was approved, whether its publication was discussed with the parents and other family members in the case, and if anyone from the President’s office has spoken to the judge who approved the transcript for publication.
The minutes included several additional suggestions including the involvement of people with lived experience in each sub-group, and that “the impact of the group’s work on families and children would be integral to the work of all the sub-groups and would be evaluated on an ongoing basis.”
Terms of reference for the group and each sub-group have not been finalised, however the group hopes to complete its work by the end of the year. The next meeting for the group has been scheduled for March, 2022.
The minutes of TIG’s meeting can be accessed here.
Researching Reform 
Much as I would like to, I don’t have time to read the minutes so am very grateful for your summary. I don’t know how you have time to do all this Natasha but so glad you do – a very happy new year to you.
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Hi Diana, thank you for your lovely comment, really touched. Wishing you a happy new year, and hopefully a more peaceful one than 2021 has been.
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TRANSPARENCY IN FAMILY COURTS IS A JOKE; Only accredited journalists are allowed in but are not allowed to publish the names of parties or to reproduce any dialogue from court proceedings ;A bit like trying to report a football match without naming the team or the players or the goals scored during play ! No wonder few journalists bother to attend .
if family courts ran under the same rules as Criminal courts as happened before the Children AcT 1989 None of these problems would arise.
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Agreed. Equal rights for parents and criminals!
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Bad things happen in secret. At the same time, I would have hated for all the lies the social worker told about me to have been reported.
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I can see that Vic but you would be free to deny those lies and go to the press and other media to protest if your children were taken for no good reason. At present new born babies are taken at birth and any mother (or father) that protests publicly is threated with jail .
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Reblogged this on tummum's Blog and commented:
‘However the minutes did not mention the judiciary’s publication of a controversial family court transcript in November which was taken down following concerns about the graphic nature of the document.’
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