Anonymity of patients in court judgments

Law and practice Other
1

Continuing the discussion from Lawfulness of earlier first statutory referrals by the MOJ (and the relevance of the change in status cases):

Off topic a little but I wish they spent more time on the anonymity matter. The UKUT grants anonymity by default - should this judgment change the way it approaches those cases, needing a full balancing act each time?

I don’t have your eidetic memory Jonathan but I can’t recall any recent cases that named someone who wasn’t either (a) seeking a public hearing, or (b) a transferred prisoner.

As this case was on statutory construction, on the facts it was never going to benefit AC personally.

2

There are some relevant cases here: Anonymisation cases. (There are definitely some Court of Protection cases that aren’t currently included there and should be, though some of them will be here: Reporting restriction order cases.)

The case that went the furthest was R (C) v SSJ [2016] UKSC 2. Here are the two paragraphs that seem most relevant to the Upper Tribunal.

  1. … After the 2007 Act, an appeal lies on a point of law to the Upper Tribunal. Rule 37(1) of The Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 (SI 2008/2698) provides that all hearings must be in public, with some exceptions, which include the Tribunal’s power, in rule 37(2), to direct that a hearing, or part of it, is to be held in private. However, rule 14(7) repeats the rule in the First-tier Tribunal that “Unless the Upper Tribunal gives a direction to the contrary, information about mental health cases and the names of any persons concerned in such cases must not be made public”. There is thus a presumption of anonymity in both tiers of the tribunal system. The issue for them, therefore, is whether to make an exception if the patient wants to waive his anonymity: see the principles helpfully discussed in AH v West London Mental Health Trust [2010] UKUT 264 (AAC) and [2011] UKUT 74 (AAC).
  1. There is, as already explained, no real risk that the patient’s confidence will be breached against his will in the course of proceedings either in the First-tier and Upper Tribunals or in the Court of Protection. The real risk arises if a case reaches the High Court or Court of Appeal.
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