Anonymity applications or reporting restrictions are par for the course for covering courts and tribunals. Sometimes, they are rightly made and correctly granted; sometimes they are overcautious and rightly rejected.
They can be opportunistic, ill-thought out or just plain wrong. Sometimes they are ridiculous. One such application was granted by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal this week.
The SDT was dealing with a substantive hearing in relation to a serious allegation. In 2022, the High Court found a solicitor to be criminally liable for contempt of court. At the time, the case made headlines and led to a number of High Court judgments which named all parties and can be found online with a quick search on National Archives.
So imagine my surprise when counsel for the Solicitors Regulation Authority said it would be making an application for anonymity. The three-person panel was told that the respondent agreed with the approach. Alarm bells rang but it seemed I was the only one hearing them, as the chair indicated the panel would rise with an ‘I am sure it will not take too long’.
True to his word and soon after, the panel returned. The SDT granted the application after it had ‘taken into account’ that the respondent was ‘content with it’. No reasons were given as to why the application was granted, which is not really surprising as no real reasons were given by the SRA as to why it was being sought.
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The argument for anonymity in this particular case would have been ludicrous. In the few seconds between Tom Walker, for the SRA, saying he was to make an ‘initial application in relation to rule 35, sub section 9 and this application for privacy…’ I had already found all the aforementioned judgments and news stories on the respondent and those who the regulator sought to anonymise.
Who was being protected with this anonymity? Why was it necessary? What was the point of it? And, why was it granted?
I wish I could tell you. No proper reasons, as far as I could tell, were given as to why those anonymised should be granted anonymity. More importantly, their names were already in the public domain and could be found with a simple internet search.
The SDT has attempted to make strides for open justice by publishing documents alongside some of its listed hearings. I applaud this. But, after yesterday, I wonder is there any point if the fundamental principle of open justice is not carried through into the hearings? The granting of this application shows a real misunderstanding of the importance of open justice and how an anonymity application ought to be brought and then allowed or dismissed.
A tribunal granting anonymity in a case that has already been widely reported on is nothing short of farcical. Parts of one High Court judgment, in which those that were anonymised in the SDT hearing are named, were even read out in court. It is an emperor’s new clothes tale in the regulatory sphere.
In this instance, I do not care about naming those anonymised but I do think it is important that tribunals get it right. Granting anonymity applications just because the parties agree is a slippery slope.
It does not take any great skill, intelligence, or effort to realise anonymity in this instance was pointless. Anonymity should not be automatically granted just because someone has asked for it. It is concerning that a basic concept like open justice was clearly not fully understood on this occasion. How can we trust bigger decisions if simple ones like this are so plainly silly?
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