What Does Naming Judges Have To Do With Vulnerable Claimants?

At the end of January, the Court of Appeal determined a case brought by an enormous number organisations in relation to the previous judges who had dealt with the tragic case of Sara Sharif. (Tickle & Anor v The BBC & Ors [2025] EWCA Civ 42,)

Sara Sharif had been murdered by her father and step-mother and, following that murder, several journalists sought information from the family proceedings regarding the history of events legally. At the time, Mr Justice Williams unilaterally made an order that the judges who had been previously involved in proceedings should not be named, focussing on an Article 8 right. The matter came before the Court of Appeal fairly quickly and the Court of Appeal indicated that the judge had no jurisdiction to anonymise the historic judges either at that time or thereafter and was wrong to do so. Further, in essence, they said that the whole idea of anonymising judges was misguided. There were a number of criticisms of the order as it was