‘Do they have to know about that?’ Human rights considerations and disclosure

Simon Johnson Pump Court Chambers

This article examines the difficult and often emotive issue of disclosure of highly personal information about one party to other parties within public law proceedings under the Children Act 1989. The article focuses on the Human Rights engaged namely those of privacy within the Article 8 right to respect for private and family life and of the right to a fair trial under Article 6. It examines in detail the case law on this subject including important decisions of the House or Lords and Supreme Court the Court of Appeal and Family Division. The article discusses the way in which the courts have approached the task of balancing one party’s absolute right to a fair trial against another party’s legitimate concerns about their privacy and the consequences of it being breached. It emphasises the crucial issue of ‘relevance’ of the disputed material to the court’s decision making and draws attention to the six questions that Peter Jackson LJ says (in Re T (Children: Non-Disclosure [2024] EWCA Civ 241) the court should ask itself when asked to authorise non-disclosure. 

The full article has published in...

Read the full article here.