FILES CAN MAKE FOR SALACIOUS READING.

be referred to in materials filed with the court.

If custody of, or access to, children is in dispute, each parent’s worst characteristics and parenting mistakes will be dredged up, while issues that affect the children themselves — such as bedwetting, eating disorders, and gender confusion — will often be referred to in sworn affidavits.

Most spouses and their lawyers use conduct as a reason why one spouse rather than the other should parent the children, or to justify certain behaviour they themselves have shown.

Finally, a family law court file will almost always contain the addresses of all real estate owned, the value of private corporations, each spouse’s income, the value of private investments, including bank account details, and a list of all debts, including to whom the debts are owed. All of these details are accessible by a brief look at a family court file.

Not surprisingly, family law court files can make for salacious and interesting reading. Family law litigants outside Quebec sometimes try to keep their court matters private by asking that their matter be referred to by initials rather than their full names; that information in the file relating to the parties or their children be “sanitized” to remove identifying information; that the file be sealed; or that an in camera hearing be held.

Unlike in Quebec, elsewhere in Canada, openness is preferred to privacy. Ontario’s Courts of Justice Act, allows an application to be made to the court to seal the court file, but the general test prescribed by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v Mentuck, is one that is difficult to meet.

To keep the court file private after litigation has been started, one of the spouses