The in camera rule which ensures that family law cases take place in private will be modified early next year. The Irish Times has learned that, for the first time, the content of family law judgments and statistics on the outcome of family law cases will become available to the media and the public.
Under a pilot scheme being introduced by the Court Service, a reporter will attend and take notes of family law cases. The reporter will draw up reports on the judgments and compile statistical information, covering which partner has custody of the children following separation or divorce, where the family home goes, and what maintenance arrangements are made. This information will be made available to the media through the service's information office.
This will mark a major change in the practice relating to family law cases. At the moment the in camera (in private) rule operates to exclude the public and the media from such cases, and only those directly involved, their lawyers and any expert witnesses they might call are permitted in court. The outcome of cases cannot be disclosed.
Most family law cases are heard in the Circuit Courts and do not feature in the law reports, which record decisions of higher courts.
Only a small minority of family law cases go to the High Court, where they are reported in the law reports, with the identities of the parties removed.
This means there is no systematic recording of decisions, and no general pool of knowledge of the way in which the various statutes governing family law are working out in practice.
While there is general support for the principle that the identity of the parties in family law cases, especially that of children, should be protected, there has been criticism of the extent to which the in camera rule has hidden the operation of family law from public scrutiny.
The proposal to modify it by the appointment of a specialist reporter was made last year in the Sixth Report of the Working Group on a Courts Commission, chaired by Ms Justice Denham.
This recommendation was accepted, and the Courts Service advertised for a solicitor or barrister to carry out this function. It is understood that it has also been consulting the Bar Council and the Law Society about how the system will operate.
The reporter is expected to be appointed later this year, and start work early next year at the latest.
It is also understood that the pilot scheme will start in the Dublin family law courts, as that is where the biggest volume of family law cases are heard.