Challenge To Anonymisation Practice In Child Support Appeals: Final Hearing Thursday 6 October 2016 In Open Court
Mr CJA had a successful child support appeal to the Upper Tribunal heard in open court with no reporting restrictions but found that the Judgment [2014] UKUT 359 (AAC) appeared anonymised on the public database, at http://www.osscsc.gov.uk/Aspx/view.aspx?id=4272.
Anonymisation was a rubber stamp process following a fully public hearing and done without any judicial direction, and is being challenged in a test case brought by CJA with the assistance of open justice campaigner Dr Michael Pelling. Originally there was no law or judicial order preventing full publication of the Judgment unanonymised, and it was lawfully published in May 2016, but then the injunctions began to fly so unfortunately no further information can be given about that publication, and the case can only be referred to here in anonymised form.
THE FINAL HEARING OF THE CHALLENGE IS ON THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016, 1030 AM, AT THE UPPER TRIBUNAL, Administrative Appeals Chamber, Rolls Building (5th Floor), Rolls Buildings (off Fetter Lane), London EC4A 1NL. It will be in one of the courts on the 5th Floor.
PLEASE COME if you support Open Justice. Routine anonymisation of any case involving a child is a deliberate practice designed to prevent parents openly publicising injustice and is not acceptable in a free and democratic society where the ability to communicate under one’s own identity is crucial for the spread of ideas, truth, and justice. To deprive a person of his identity by taking away his name is to deny his humanity and is characteristic of totalitarian states: read the Article “What’s In A (Jewish) Name?” to see where that leads.
This is a particularly strong case because child support cases under the Child Support Act 1991 are NOT about the child’s private and family life, but only about the correct calculation of child support maintenance under the complex formulae of the child support legislation. So there is no reason whatsoever to anonymise anyone in the case. The Judgment itself is somewhat arcane, concerning a maverick interpretation by Upper Tribunal Judge Turnbull of the term “beneficial interest” in child support legislation: it simply is not about the child Nicholas.
The Judge hearing the case on 6 October is the President of the Chamber, High Court Judge Mr Justice Charles, who is also Vice-President of the Court of Protection and was a judge of the Family Division 1998-2014. At an interim hearing (in open court) on 22 June 2016 this Judge demanded that a number of F4J supporters and other members of the public present give their names and addresses! Subsequent legal research has confirmed that this was illegal and a violation of the Open Justice principle.
