“the directions necessary to enable her to make an Application to the European Court of Human Rights, having been advised that this is the route she should pursue.”
“Following earlier court orders permitting SW to provide documents to counsel, she has now been advised on her prospects in respect of an action for damages in the domestic courts in misfeasance in public office and undersection 7(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). Specifically, she has been advised that she is unlikely to succeed because she is unlikely to be able to establish bad faith and/or a lack of good faith; bad faith is of course a matter she would be required to prove in a misfeasance claim, and by virtue ofsection 9(3) HRA a lack of good faith is a pre-requisite for an award of damages for breaches of rights under Articles other thanArticle 5 ECHR . She has, however, been advised that she can bring an application to the ECtHR in light of the decision in Hammerton v United Kingdom(2016) 63 EHRR 23 for breach of Article 13 as well as Articles 6 & 8. … SW has been advised that disclosure of the draft judgment arising from care proceedings is necessary because she relies upon harm (both to her health and to her reputation) that arose at the point at which the Judge first delivered his judgment and ordered, at the same time, that it be sent to SW’s employers (at which point she was suspended from work). As the Court of Appeal later found, this harm occurred before the Judge was persuaded to embark upon a series of hearings during which he received detailed submissions made on behalf of each of these three appellants and others as to the precise content of the judgment: see §8, §86-87 of Re W.”
“Rules 33 and 47(4) of the ECtHR’s Rules of Court, together with the Practice Direction on Requests for Anonymity, provide a process for anonymisation of parties to proceedings and for the President of the Chamber to decide, on application, to restrict access to a document in the interests of (inter alia) juveniles or of the protection of the private life of the parties or any person concerned. The further directions now sought by SW seek to ensure that an application to the ECtHR can be made subject to the necessary requests pursuant to those rules, so as to protect the anonymity of the children and all members of the family concerned in the care proceedings and the appeal (and SW’s rights, to the extent to which they are engaged). As you will see from the proposed draft order SW will make the necessary application seeking to ensure that she is anonymized and that none of the documents from the care proceedings that might identify the children or their family will be made public.”
“Copies of this letter and its enclosure have been sent to all other parties to the appeal proceedings in order that may make representations should they wish to do so.”
“… subject always to the imposition of any necessary safeguards and conditions, family courts should not stand in the way of, and should, on the contrary, take all appropriate steps to facilitate, the proper administration of justice elsewhere. This principle is well recognised in the authorities both in relation to the criminal justice system and in relation to tribunals as varied as those dealing with medical discipline and criminal injuries compensation. It is, of course, equally applicable in relation to the civil justice system.”