Gloster LJ clarifies the law relating to the making of anonymity orders in financial remedies appeals to the Court of Appeal.
Facts
- In 2005, the parties divorced and entered into a consent order, which provided that the husband make periodical payments to the wife. Subsequently, the parties brought multiple extension, variation and set aside applications and appeals.
- At the conclusion of the first appeal to the Court of Appeal, in June 2011, an order was made which contained an anonymity direction. There was no judgment of the court explaining the reasons for the anonymity order, nor were the press notified of the application.
- A number of further set aside applications were made by the wife. In the later appeal proceedings that followed McFarlane LJ (in an ex tempore judgment at the permission stage) referred to a previous judgment that named the parties, and when asked by a member of the press, stated that no reporting restrictions applied.
- The Daily Mail and the Evening Standard published stories about the permission application.
- The wife sought a continuation of the anonymity order made by the Court of Appeal in June 2011, or alternatively a fresh anonymity order, although she did not make a formal paper application.
Held
- The wife’s application was dismissed.
- Gloster LJ set out the procedure for anonymity applications that the court would expect to be followed; and which had not been followed in this case [34].
- Where a party, seeking permission to appeal or appealing to the Court of Appeal, wishes to be heard in private or subject to an anonymity order, he/she must make a formal court application.
- It should set out the grounds for the anonymity order and be supported by the necessary evidence.
- Notice of the application, a copy of the Notice of Appeal and any evidence in support of the application should be given by the applicant to media organisations by service on the Press Association’s Copy Direct Service.
- Where all that is sought is to anonymise the names and dates of birth of minor children, or, for example, to restrict publication of information relating to where they attend school, or about their medical condition, and the parties agree, a formal application may not be necessary. However, a letter should be send to the court indicating that such an application will be made and stating that the court may wish to consider whether the press should be informed.
- Appeals to the Court of Appeal against orders for financial remedies are ordinarily heard in open court and without any order for anonymisation unless:
(i) it is established that a party’s article 8 rights are engaged; and
(ii) having balanced the competing Convention rights (Articles 6, 8 and 10), the court decides that an order for anonymisation is required for the proper administration of justice [62].
- Gloster LJ was prepared to assume (without deciding) that the wife’s Article 8 rights were to a limited extent engaged because the evidence contained certain historic information about her finances and current unemployment [71]. She rejected the wife’s other arguments concerning the invasion of her privacy [72] – [74].
- She found that the countervailing interest in reporting the proceedings clearly outweighed the wife’s Article 8 rights. Moreover, there was every justification in the circumstances of the case for interfering with such rights as she might have [75].
