The court of appeal has ruled that Mr Justice Williams was mistaken in ordering that the three judges who allowed Sara Sharif to live with her father and stepmother should not be identified.
Sara, 10, was murdered by Urfan Sharif and Beinash Batool, who were convicted last month in a trial that attracted a great deal of interest because of the horrific nature of the crime – and because of the evidence that several chances to protect the child had been missed.
After the verdict, documents were published showing that a judge granted Sara’s father residence rights, despite being aware of allegations that he beat her siblings and had been arrested for assaulting women.
Mr Justice Williams was worried that the professionals who had dealt with Sara’s case in the family courts, including three judges, might be exposed to a “virtual lynch mob”.
No one should seek to minimise those concerns. Mr Justice Williams said that he had “experience as the family presiding judge of taking on cases from judges who [had] been worn down by the barrage of abuse they [had] suffered at the hands of litigants”, and that “being subject to abusive behaviour was not part of the job”.
There is undoubtedly the risk, taken by judges and other professionals working in the family courts and social services, that they will be subjected to abusive, threatening or violent behaviour by those who hold them responsible for allowing terrible crimes to be committed.
But there are similar risks taken by judges and professionals in the criminal courts, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police. Many crimes inspire strong feelings of revulsion and can prompt a search for people in positions of authority to blame and vilify, sometimes unfairly, as has also been seen in the response to the Southport murders.
Openness and accountability are fundamental principles of justice, and if they put the personal safety of judges in danger the answer is better security precautions, not censorship.
The appeal court was right, therefore, to overturn Mr Justice Williams’s ruling. The appeal judges, led by Sir Geoffrey Vos, were unusually blunt: “The judge was wrong. He had no jurisdictional foundation for making the anonymity order he did.”
Their judgment went on: “Courts operate on the basis of the law and the evidence, not on the basis of judicial speculation and anecdote, even if it is legitimate to take judicial notice of some matters. In short, the judge’s judgment demonstrates, to put the matter moderately, that he got carried away.”
It would be interesting to know what the judges would have said if they had decided to put the matter “immoderately”: presumably that Mr Justice Williams had taken leave of his senses.
He certainly seems to have failed to give his ruling the consideration it deserved. He admitted when he made it that he had not received any representations about it, either from the judges concerned or any other interested parties, including journalists. And his ruling of anonymity was accompanied by an attack on journalists for irresponsible and inaccurate reporting, which included a swipe at the Daily Mail for its front-page headline describing high court judges as “Enemies of the People”.
The Independent did not agree with that headline, which related to a ruling that parliament was required to vote to start the process of leaving the EU, and of course we condemn inaccurate reporting designed to stir up hatred against anyone, whether in a position of authority or not.
There is no evidence that this is an issue here. In any case, we believe in openness and free media above all. Family courts often deal with sensitive and difficult issues, where respect for privacy, especially of children, is often essential. But the administration of justice itself must always be open and accountable. The judges in the Sara Sharif case must be protected if necessary, but they have no right to anonymity.
