CLP to carry out family-law reporting project
The Department of Justice has chosen the Child Law Project (CLP), headed by Dr Carol Coulter, to produce reports and information on family-law cases in the courts.
The department said that the CLP was awarded the tender after a competitive procurement process.
The Family Law Reporting Project, expected to run for three years, is aimed at improving transparency about private family-law proceedings and building confidence in the judicial determination of private family-law disputes, while continuing to ensure the privacy of those proceedings for children and families.
Dr Coulter established the CLP in 2012 and has served as its executive director since then.
She is a former legal-affairs editor of the Irish Times and established a pilot project on family-law reporting for the Courts Service in 2006/2007.
Trends
The Family Law Reporting Project will:
- Collect information on key aspects of family-law cases to enable the compilation of statistics,
- Analyse the data collated and report on trends in family-law cases to inform policymakers, the judiciary, legal practitioners, and the public,
- Provide descriptions of the cases as they unfold, detailing key aspects of each hearing attended,
- Describe what kinds of orders are being sought and the reasons given for those requests,
- Capture the perspectives of the parties and witnesses in family-law proceedings as can be determined from observations and court records,
- Document and summarise the decisions of the judge and the reasons being given, and
- Synthesise the findings into accessible reports.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said that there was no comprehensive system in Ireland for regularly and systematically reporting on private family-law proceedings.
He described the establishment of such a system as “a hugely significant initiative”, adding that he expected it to produce information that would help the department in developing family-justice policy and legislation.
The establishment of the project follows a report on the in camera rule last year that made several recommendations on promoting greater transparency in family-law proceedings.