G (A Child : transparency in the family courts)

Access to family-court documents is discretionary. The court must consider all the circumstances and balance the applicant’s rights against the privacy, confidentiality and Convention rights of others. A person’s right to understand their own history does not confer carte blanche to inspect the whole court file or the private histories of other family members. Access may properly be limited to documents central to the decision and the applicant’s own connection with it. In applications to publicise historic family proceedings, the passage of time alone is insufficient to justify releasing an undertaking or confidentiality restrictions. The court must assess the effectiveness of anonymity measures, the impact on affected family members and whether alleged procedural failings could have affected the outcome. Those principles apply even after the child concerned reaches adulthood.

The proceedings concerned applications arising from private-law proceedings heard by Singer J in 2002 concerning G, then a young child. B, G’s half-brother, sought access to the wider court file and related documents to understand his family history. M, G’s mother, sought release from an undertaking given to Singer J and permission to discuss the proceedings and disseminate documents to her children and, in anonymised form, the media. F, G’s father, opposed both applications. The central issues were the scope of the court’s discretion over access to family-court documents, the balance between competing Article 8 rights and medical confidentiality, and whether historic confidentiality restrictions should be lifted.

1. B’s application. Rule 29.12(1) confers a discretion over disclosure of documents on the court file. The rule contains no requirement that circumstances be exceptional. The court must consider all the circumstances and exercise its discretion justly, with anxious scrutiny of the competing Article 8 and other rights. The factors identified in Re X (Adopted Child: Access to Court File) [2014] EWFC 33 were useful but were not statutory or exhaustive.
2. B had a genuine and important interest in knowing the truth about his past. That interest did not entitle him to conduct an unrestricted examination of the trial bundles, particularly where the documents concerned the highly private lives and medical information of other family members. A proper understanding of Singer J’s decision justified access to documents central to that decision, but the wider request was disproportionate. B was therefore permitted copies of the further expert reports and specified witness statements, subject to the existing undertaking. BB was placed in the same position.
3. Medical information required particular protection. Disclosure without consent required effective and adequate safeguards against abuse. The balancing exercise also had to reflect the confidentiality interests of persons whose lives were more centrally involved in the original proceedings.
4. M’s application. The mere passage of time did not amount to a significant change of circumstances justifying release from the undertaking or from the restrictions imposed by section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960. M’s alleged new evidence was untested, would not now be tested in court, and did not demonstrate that the matters relied on had affected the outcome. The proposed anonymity measures were unlikely to prevent the detrimental impact on F, G, B and BB or to avoid forcing F’s hand as to when and how G learned of the family history.
5. The balance therefore fell against publicity and wider dissemination. This conclusion was not dependent on G remaining a minor. M could speak privately to B or BB if they wished to hear her account.