Clibbery v Allan and another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 14 June 2001 |
| Date | 14 June 2001 |
| Court | Family Division |
FAMILY DIVISION
Before Mr Justice Munby.
Practice - disclosure from family chambers hearing - not inherently unlawful
No confidentiality attached to proceedings, or to information conveyed in the course of proceedings, in the Family Division merely because those proceedings took place in chambers, nor was there anything in domestic law that made information that was not already inherently confidential into confidential information simply because it was packaged in an affidavit and filed in that Division.
Mr Justice Munby so held in the Family Division in a reserved judgment handed down in open court following a hearing in chambers when discharging an injunction granted by Mr Justice Connell on May 3, 2001 whereby Glory Anne Clibbery, the applicant, was restrained from making further disclosures following her unsuccessful application under Part IV of the Family Law Act 1996 for an occupation order in respect of a flat owned by the respondent's company and the subsequent publication in the press of, inter alia, direct quotations from the sworn written evidence in the proceedings of Ivan William Allan, the first respondent.
Mr Andrew Moylan, QC and Mr Christopher Pocock for Mr Allan; Mr Andrew Monson for Miss Clibbery.
MR JUSTICE MUNBY said that the issue was to what extent proceedings in relation to money or property, where no children were involved, heard in chambers in the Family Division were confidential.
There were no allegations that any of the information deployed in the proceedings was inherently confidential; that the applicant had been acting in bad faith; nor, other than the mere fact of disclosure, that there been any contempt, interference with, or prejudice to the administration of justice.
Rejecting the respondent's submission that the mere disclosure of documents used or evidence and judgment given at a hearing in chambers was unlawful and something no litigant was entitled to do without first obtaining the leave of the court, his Lordship said that Scott v ScottELR ((1912) P 241) had established once and for all that there was in principle no difference between the Family Division and the two other Divisions of the High Court; nor did the Family Division as such have any greater powers than any other part of the High Court to sit in camera.
If such a power existed it had to be founded in specific statutory authority or by...
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