KEY POINTS:
Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier today defended the release of full judgments in the Jayden Headley custody case.
And he said that in future where there was considerable and justifiable public interest in matters arising in the Family Court information about other cases might also be released.
Jayden disappeared from Hamilton Central Library in August. He was missing for five months, believed to be on the run with his maternal grandfather Dick Headley.
His mother Kay Skelton and father Chris Jones had been locked in a battle over access rights and custody since he was eight months old.
Headley is now in custody on one kidnap charge, after handing Jayden over to police on Tuesday.
Skelton, who had spent three months in prison on contempt of court for refusing to reveal Jayden's whereabouts, has been released but faces one kidnap charge.
She has indicated she will fight for custody of Jayden.
Yesterday three family court judges, Anne McAloon, David Brown and Rosemary Riddell, made the rare decision to issue copies of their judgments relating the case.
Today Skelton's lawyer Barry Hart said he was astonished at their decision and his client was very upset.
"What the Family Court has now done is release material that will prejudice our right to a fair trial," Mr Hart said.
He said he should have been given notice so he could apply to the High Court to prevent the release of the documents.
"What was the hurry? Why did the Family Court release it without giving notice to anybody?"
Mr Hart said thanks to the release of the decisions and the media attention on them he would be putting a motion in to have the charges against his client dismissed as she would never get a fair trial.
And he said he would be seeking an injunction preventing the Family Court from releasing further information.
But Judge Boshier said the three judges who made decisions in the case had agreed to have the decisions published because of the high degree of public prominence and because of the issues the case invoked.
The constitutional convention that applies is that the judges do not debate their decisions through the media.
For that reason Judge Boshier said he had not responded to criticism or media requests to further explain those decisions other than to say that they were undertaken according to the public interest considerations that apply under the Care of Children Act.
However, he made it clear that the release of the full unanonymised judgments was a proper exercise of the court's role.
He believes this was the first time that Family Court judgments had been released in unanonymised form since the Care of Children Act came into force.
"Prior to the act there were instances, such as the Jelicich case, where details of a case might be released to correct significant information about a case that had become the subject of public controversy."
Judge Boshier said the beginning point under the Care of Children Act was that all judgements could be published as of right but without names and identifying information.
"The act nevertheless provides judges with a discretion to publish that includes such identifying information," he said.
"This discretion is not defined but may apply where, in the view of the judge, the public interest would warrant it. It may be exercised particularly in cases where the parties have already identified themselves and their children and where there has been considerable and justifiable public interest in matters arising from that case."
Judge Boshier said Jones v Skelton was easily such a case but each decision to publish would be undertaken on its own merits.
He also said, as he had maintained previously, that where a case became public and the role of the Family Court came under scrutiny, he would always look at making available judgments so as to ensure the public had the full facts.
- NZPA
