England and Wales’ leading family law judge has told social workers that the law can’t be allowed to stop parents 
naming and shaming of social workers.
Sir James Munby, president of the Family Division of the High Court, rejected a legal bid to ban the father of a child, known only as J, from posting information about social workers in a case which saw a baby taken from him and the mother of the child against their will.
Sir James said the law could not be used to silence the father of the infant – known only as “J” – who was forcibly taken into care by social services on the day he was born, in April this year, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The judge said a legal challenge should not be used to “spare the blushes” of officials, even if they were subjected to criticism which was “abusive and unjustified”.
In a ruling which is expected to have far-reaching implications for open justice, the judge demanded more transparency in the courts because publicity in newspapers and on the internet plays a vital role in avoiding miscarriages of justice.
The ruling on Wednesday came after widespread concern about secrecy in the family courts – which usually hold hearings in private – and a separate court, known as the Court of Protection, which deals with life-or-death decisions about patient treatment.
Sir James said: “There is a pressing need for more transparency, indeed for much more transparency, in the family justice system.
“We must have the humility to recognise – and to acknowledge – that public debate, and the jealous vigilance of an informed media, have an important role to play in exposing past miscarriages of justice and in preventing possible future miscarriages of justice.
“The remedy, even if it is probably doomed to only partial success, is … more transparency. Putting it bluntly, letting the glare of publicity into the family courts.”
He added: “The fear of such criticism, however justified that fear may be, and however unjustified the criticism, is, however, not of itself a justification for prior restraint by injunction … even if the criticism is expressed in vigorous, trenchant or outspoken terms.”
The role of an injunction was not to “spare the blushes of those being attacked, however abusive and unjustified those attacks may be”, Sir James said.
Staffordshire County Council sought an injunction after J’s father posted material about social workers on the internet.
He also posted video clips on Facebook, the online social network, and YouTube, the video website, of social workers taking the child into care under an emergency protection order. He also identified his child by name.
The parents’ three other children, aged 10, four and 18 months, have also been taken into care.
The father had previously described social services as “wicked” and “predatory”, and implied the “SS” were making financial gains from the adoption of his children.
Staffordshire applied for a wide-ranging reporting restrictions order which would prevent the publication of the child’s name, address and image. It would also have barred anyone from identifying the county council or employees involved in J’s case.
In July, Sir James published guidelines setting out how thousands more court judgments in care and adoption cases should be made public.
Councils have been criticised for using similar legal methods inappropriately in the past.
For example, in 2008 a senior judge said East Sussex County Council was guilty of a “wholly unacceptable abuse of power” for rushing through the adoption of an 18 month-old child and blocking a challenge by the child’s natural father.