The High Court has ruled that parties must obtain prior court permission before disclosing documents, information or evidence from private family law proceedings to third parties. It held that section 40(6) and (7) of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 does not remove that requirement.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Max Barrett on 21 October 2022, arose from an application by Ms Y concerning material from divorce proceedings involving Mr X. The judge did not determine whether Mr X’s allegation of deceit by solicitors for the opposing side was true. He said it remained an allegation, which those accused denied, and made no findings on its truth.
The judgment says Mr X disclosed material from the divorce proceedings to a solicitor while seeking advice about a possible criminal complaint, without first obtaining court leave. It records that a complaint was then made to An Garda Síochána and that information from the proceedings was given to Gardaí. Related complaints were said to have been made to several other bodies. The judge said he took Mr X’s case at its highest and assumed he had acted in good faith.
Mr X argued that section 40 gave him a broad right to share the material with bodies carrying out official functions. Ms Y argued that prior court leave was required. Justice Barrett interpreted the subsections as separate exceptions and concluded that subsections (6) and (7) did not displace the traditional rule. The judgment did not decide the truth of the alleged deceit or assess what information was actually disclosed to third parties.
The court granted Ms Y’s requests for Mr X to provide a comprehensive list of recipients and a list of materials shown or given to them, and restrained further dissemination of in camera material. The proposed deadline for the second list was not final: the judge said 14 days seemed too short and that he would discuss a longer period with the parties before the order was finalised.
The judgment also withheld the record number, placing it in an appendix ordered not to be made public, to reduce the risk of identifying the parties by linking this case to an earlier judgment.