In B v UK the government argued in 2001 that hearing cases concerning children in private was necessary to protect the private lives of children and to promote the administration of justice by encouraging parties and witnesses to give full and frank evidence. Eight years later, the secretary of state for children, schools and families has endorsed the new Children, Schools and Families Bill as follows: ‘In my view the provisions of the Children, Schools and Families Bill are compatible with Convention rights.’

This endorsement is startling, given that it fails to recognise that those parts of the bill which deal with the publication of information relating to family proceedings undermine both foundations of the government’s successful argument before the European Court of Human Rights.

Children’s private lives encompass their psychological and physical integrity, their personal development, the development of their social relationships and their physical and social identity. For children involved in family proceedings, it is manifest that these cardinal elements of the child’s developmental framework are already threatened to one degree or another, if not actively undermined, by the emotional turmoil of family dispute or dysfunction. Where the details of that dispute or dysfunction are the subject of publication, Dr Claire Sturge has argued that it will not be possible to protect children from what she describes as the further trauma of knowing that what they perceive as ‘their details’ will be out there. Depending on the nature of the information published, the effect of such trauma may be grave; precisely the opposite outcome to that sought by the family justice system. Publication within the community of information concerning family proceedings will necessarily impact directly on children’s ability to form healthy social relationships within the family and immediate community, with consequent impact on their psychological, and potentially their physical, security. Such disclosure will inevitably affect how others perceive the child and accordingly the nature and development of their social identity.

As to the operation of the family justice system as a whole, as a matter of fairness and professional propriety psychologists, psychiatrists and lawyers are duty bound to explain to children and their parents that what they are saying may well be heard by journalists in court. This results in an immediate and fundamental change in the patient-doctor or professional-client relationship, reducing the chances that a full and frank discourse will be achieved and thus reducing the chances that the family justice system will have before it the information necessary to mitigate and repair damage to the child’s welfare and developmental framework occasioned by abuse or family dysfunction.

Those who argue that the anonymisation of press reports would mitigate these difficulties fail to appreciate that the simple reputation of the modern press acts to generate significant anxiety in the subject even before any headlines are written; and that the closer to home publicity comes, the less effective are measures intended to ensure anonymity. Those who contend that younger children will not be aware of any dissemination of their circumstances to the wider public fail to appreciate that, in the age of ever more advanced information technology, today’s news story forever remains the potential result of a Google search.

It can only be hoped that the government remembers its victory in Europe and removes from the bill as being incompatible with the European convention those provisions which will interfere so manifestly with the psychological and physical integrity, personal development, social relationships and physical and social identity that comprise the cardinal elements of already vulnerable children’s private lives, as well as the operation of the very system designed to protect them.

Alistair MacDonald is a barrister at St Philips Chambers, Birmingham. He is a past joint chair of the Association of Lawyers for Children and was a panel member at a debate on the government’s transparency proposals held in December by the Family Justice Council