A legal challenge to the statutory requirement that family law cases must be heard in private has been initiated by a divorced man.
Dr Bob McCormack yesterday secured leave from the High Court to challenge, in judicial review proceedings, the use of in camera procedures in family law cases. Dr McCormack has carried out research and published material on the courts' use of the in camera rule.
A research director and a remarried, Dr McCormack, Iveragh Road, Whitehall, Dublin, applied in person to the court and got leave from Mr Justice O'Donovan to seek a declaration that the requirement that proceedings under the Family Law (Divorce) Act 1996 be heard "otherwise than in public" was constitutionally invalid and that accordingly section 38(5) of the Act was invalid.
In an affidavit, Dr McCormack said he was concerned with the "absolute secrecy being imposed in family law cases in the Irish courts with the resultant stifling of any inquiry into the workings and examination of the family law statutes or any scrutiny of the behaviour of judges, lawyers, court officials and family assessors".
He was taking the case because there was a principle of great public importance and the public interest required greater scrutiny of the conduct of family law courts. In a democracy, there was no place for the kind of secret court hearings required by the legislation as set out in a 2000 High Court decision.
He had sought to bring a complaint of professional misconduct against the barrister who represented him in his divorce application before the Circuit Court in June 1998, he said.
He claimed the court refused him documents relating to his case so that he could produce them at a private hearing of the Barristers Professional Conduct Tribunal.
The High Court judge who refused his Circuit Court appeal also refused to deliver his judgment in public or to declare it a public document. The judgment was published later on the web, in Law Reports Monthly and Irish reports, he said.