Judges in the family courts have been the butt of an intense campaign of attack in recent years, including having their addresses emblazoned on a website.

Parents - mostly fathers - who felt aggrieved at decisions over contact with their children accused the family justice system of bias and complained that it operated behind closed doors. There has also been concern about decisions in care cases (where children are removed from families) and a fear that social workers, keen to meet targets, are rushing ahead with adoptions.

Calls for openness led in 2006 to a consultation paper that proposed admitting the media to High Court and county court family hearings. The idea was to promote understanding and confidence. Senior judges were in favour, though those at the coalface had concerns about prurient neighbours turning up and the threat to anonymity.

But in what was described as “not so much a U-turn as a full-throttle reverse” Lord Falconer of Thoroton, then Lord Chancellor, ditched the plans in June 2007 after opposition from groups working with children. He even proposed closing magistrates' courts in such cases, with the media admitted only at magistrates' discretion. Of a second consultation paper, issued the next month, David Pannick, QC, wrote: “The new approach to 'openness' is to maintain the secrecy that afflicts family law.” Lord Falconer had lost his nerve, he wrote.

Since the consultation closed, a year ago, little has been heard. Next month Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, will announce the plans.

Many hope that he will heed the philosopher Jeremy Bentham's words: “Where there is no publicity there is no justice”.

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