I am the Chair of the Financial Remedies sub-group of the Transparency Implementation Group which has been set up by the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane.
The group includes Judges of all levels together with Barristers, Solicitors, the press and a legal blogger representative. It has been decided to prepare a survey of all interested parties in order to gather views and ideas.
The group has been set up to consider all issues concerning transparency within the Financial Remedies Court including, anonymity, who should be permitted to be present in Court, what documents (if any) should be disclosed to the press/legal bloggers, what may be reported and how should judgments be anonymised (if this is considered appropriate).
These issues are most frequently encountered in the High Court, but there are also many cases involving local prominent individuals that do not involve significant assets which could just as easily be heard by a Deputy District Judge. We wish to hear the views of everyone and not just those individuals that are frequently involved in high net worth/High Court cases.
It should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Indeed, if you limit yourself to the ‘multiple-choice’ answers only then it can be completed in 5 minutes but will take longer if you wish to add further thoughts in the ‘free text’ responses.
The survey will be open from 1 June 2022 to 31 July 2022. Please respond as soon as you are able as that will give us greater time to analyse the responses.
Thank you for your assistance.
