Bulletin readers may recall that late last year there was extensive media coverage of an English case involving a mentally ill woman who was forced to give birth by caesarean section against her will and whose child was subsequently adopted.
Click here to read an article on the UK Human Rights Blog criticising coverage of the case.
Much of the media coverage was speculative and inaccurate. The Judge concerned, Mostyn J, subsequently authorised publication of the judgment and the court transcript in order to clarify matters. The judgment reveals that the order was made at the urgent request of the NHS Trust, supported by evidence that a caesarean section was medically in the best interests of the seriously ill woman. She had previously had two caesarean sections and faced a significant risk of uterine rupture if she had a vaginal birth. Due to her mental illness the woman lacked capacity to consent to medical treatment regarding the method of giving birth and related matters. The child was taken into care and subsequently placed for adoption.
Click here to read the judgment and transcript.
When the media storm broke in December 2013, Essex County Council applied for a reporting restriction prohibiting identification of the mother, child or any other family members in order to protect the identity of the child. Their application was initially refused.
Essex County Council again applied for a reporting restriction. Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, noted what he considered the “strident” and “tendentious” media criticism of the orders made by the courts in this case. He sought to balance a number of competing legitimate concerns in the case. He noted that given the “extreme gravity” of the issues involved “it is hard to imagine a case which more obviously and compellingly requires that public debate be free and unrestricted.” The mother had an equally compelling right to air her complaints in relation to her experience of the family courts.
Sir Munby observed that the media cannot be fully to blame for inaccurate and speculative reporting on the issue since the relevant information had not been made public. He concluded by calling for greater transparency in the family court system:
“This case must surely stand as final, stark and irrefutable demonstration of the pressing need for radical changes in the way in which both the family courts and the Court of Protection approach what for shorthand I will refer to as transparency. We simply cannot go on as hitherto. Many more judgments must be published.”
Click here to read an article on the UK Human Rights Blog.
By way of comparison, concern at the lack of transparency in Ireland’s childcare proceedings led to the launch of the Child Care Law Reporting Project in April 2013. The fourth volume of case reports was published in December.
Click here for more information.