IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
Royal Courts of Justice,
Strand,
London WC2A 2LL
Monday 31 st July 2006
Before:
THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS
LORD JUSTICE BROOKE
and
LORD JUSTICE NEUBERGER
PRACTICE NOTE
(Anonymisation in Asylum and Immigration Cases in the Court of Appeal)
The Court of Appeal has decided to follow the universal practice observed by other European jurisdictions and to anonymise its judgments in cases involving asylum-seekers. It is satisfied that the publication of the names of appellants may create avoidable risks for them in the countries from which they have come.
It would be impractical to introduce internal arrangements within the Civil Appeals Office which made any distinction between asylum-seekers and those seeking other relief under the immigration laws when these cases are received in the Office from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal or from the Administrative Court.
All applications and appeals raising asylum and immigration issues which are lodged on or after 2nd October 2006 will therefore be anonymised in the court’s internal records by assigning two initials and the country of origin [AB (Turkey), for instance] unless a judge gives a specific direction to contrary effect.
Such cases will then be listed and referred to solely by reference to this “name” and the reference number allocated to them in the Civil Appeals Office (for example, AB (Turkey), Case No C5/2006/1234).
Hearings will continue to take place in open court (unless the court otherwise directs). If judgment is given in an asylum appeal (or a permission to appeal application, where the judgment is released from the usual restriction on citation), there will be a presumption that the asylum-seeker's anonymity will be preserved unless the court gives a direction to contrary effect. On the other hand, there will be a presumption that judgments in immigration appeals will identify the name of the person seeking relief under the immigration laws unless the court gives a direction requiring anonymity.
If more than one judgment is issued by the Court of Appeal in a single year under the same name, the later judgments will be numbered. Thus AB (Turkey) [2006] EWCA Civ 1; AB (Turkey) (No 2) [2006] EWCA Civ 1235; AB (Turkey) (No 3) [2006] EWCA 2045 etc.