Court decisions involving adopted children should be made public where there are issues of public concern and where the interest of the child requires it, the High Court has decided.
The judgment was made in the context of the hearings involving Tristan Dowse, who, the court decided last week, should be maintained by the Irish couple who had adopted him until he reaches the age of 18, and who retains his inheritance rights to their estate.
These hearings were heard in private, but Mr Justice John McMenamin decided to make his judgment public, ruling that this was in the interests of Tristan's welfare into the future, including the preservation and protection of his right to maintenance.
He said that the full provisions of his orders should be published, if only for the practical reasons of correcting any false impression already created in this jurisdiction, and having regard to the possibility that the matter might come into the public domain in a way that might actually prejudice Tristan's interest.
Most matters dealing with family law are heard in private. However, judgments of the High Court and Supreme Court relating to divorce and separation are often published, usually in the official Law Reports, with names and other identifying details removed.
Matters dealing with child custody and welfare issues, including adoption, are also usually dealt with in private.
Referring to this case, Mr Justice McMenamin said the 1991 Adoption Act made it clear that the power to hear proceedings under Section 7 of this Act (rescinding an adoption order) was discretionary. It was a fundamental principle of Irish law that justice should be administered in public, he said.
He said that previous Irish judgments and the European Convention on Human Rights both made clear that courts must make their judgments public unless this would constitute a denial of justice.
Even if some portions of a judgment might amount to such a denial, they should publish such portions as did not do so.
He pointed out that in the High Court and Supreme Court judgments concerning a ward of court, who had been in a near-vegetative state for many years and whose family sought that she had the right to die, the hearings were in private but the judgments had been made public.
He also cited the English case involving former minister David Blunkett, who had sought a Parental Responsibility Order and Contact Order relating to a child born to a woman with whom he had an affair, where the judgment was made public.
He said that the situation of Tristan Dowse was already very much in the public domain, although he added: "This court cannot countenance a situation where the acts of some third party or persons have the effect of putting the issue of publicity regarding a case 'into play'."
In considering the issue of publicity, "the welfare of the minor must at all times remain paramount".
This consideration led him to the conclusion that the publication of the judgment, in this instance, would assist in the protection of Tristan's interests.