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Family Court must be in Public
NORTHAMPTON HERALD & POST - THURSDAY. 15th June 2006
THE practice of family courts sending people to prison in secret could
soon be at an end.
In Parliament on Tuesday, June 13, Constitutional Affairs Minister,
Harriet Harman told colleagues two hundred people were sent to prison last
year without a public hearing. The revelation came in response to a
question by Northampton north MP Sally Keeble ( Labour ) who has been
campaigning for an end to the process.
Family court currently meets in private but many believe this should
change in the interests of justice.
Mrs Keeble asked Ms Harman what plans the government had for family court
hearings to be told:
"The idea that people are sent to prison without any reports of the
proceedings makes even more important the work that we are undertaking
with the family courts and with the important intervention of the
Constitutional Affairs Committee to open them up so that they act in the
public interest while maintaining personal privacy."
Ms Harman is currently heading a review of the family court system in
England and gave a speech on the subject at Highgate House in Northampton
only last month.
Mrs Keeble said: "A constituent of mine who refused her violent ex-partner
access to their child was appalled at the prospect of going to prison in
total secrecy with no public hearing.
"This might be the way to deal with people who are a serious risk to state
security but it is not the way to deal with feuding parents"
This is the first time that these numbers have been disclosed and it is
astonishing that four people go to Prison in secret each week from the
family courts."
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