Ms Helen Coughlan:

With family law, the proceedings are heard in private and that is why the Deputy's constituent was not able to bring his friend in with him. Those are the current rules. I said earlier that a person is quite entitled to represent themselves in court and they often do so because of the delays in getting legal aid. There are many reasons people represent themselves in court but thein camerarule is to preserve the sanctity and the importance of family law proceedings. The alternative might very well be that everybody would be walking in and sitting in on family law proceedings and that would not be optimum either.