Court of Appeal rules the 3 Sara Sharif judges can be identified next week.

I don’t agree with naming the judges. There is no possible benefit to the public in knowing their names, and possibly a great deal of harm to the judges. Family Court judges names are not released for a reason.

I am glad that they can no longer hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Ultimately, their decision to return that poor child to her father cost her her life.

What benefit is to be gained from naming the judges. All I know is that it must have been terrible for everyone concerned to learn in detail how this child suffered. The court clerks and other court employees for example.

It might stop it happening again, it was the wrong decision.

What can be gained by naming them ?

I cant decide what I feel on this. How is is different to social workers, etc being identified in high profile cases where mistakes are made. I absolutely accept your point maddy about the risk but there have been occasions where other professionals have been identified.

I agree with maddyone. Family court judges are protected for very good reasons indeed.

In a lifetime of judging, they made very much the wrong decision in retrospect, and I am sure are paying heavily for it with their consciences. We are just opening the gates for "revenge" and possible violence. what good does that serve anyone?

Although family court proceedings are held in private and the names of the parties are not made public, and rightly so, I see no reason why the judges should be anonymous. That breeds distrust in our justice system.

Barleyfields

I am glad that they can no longer hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Ultimately, their decision to return that poor child to her father cost her her life.

Because Barleyfields, Family Court judges are often threatened with violence by aggrieved litigants who do not agree with the judgement. I know of one case where a radiator was picked up and thrown at a judge. Luckily it missed. We cannot have a situation where judges can be intimidated and threatened by litigants.

As it happens, I also disagree with the judges who placed Sara back in the care of her father, but that does not make me feel that in this extremely difficult and emotive area of law, judges should be named.

Barleyfields

Although family court proceedings are held in private and the names of the parties are not made public, and rightly so, I see no reason why the judges should be anonymous. That breeds distrust in our justice system.

This is because you do not have access to the information. Family Court judges have been threatened and even tracked down to their home addresses and further threatened. Now they are no longer named and they are advised to use no social media at all. It is for their protection. We cannot have a situation where judges are threatened and abused and possibly worse because of the possible judgements they may deliver.

Reading the O/P it sounds a bit like its been some journalists in the media trying to uncover matters "in the public interest" but it sounds a bit more like a witch hunt to me for a hungry red top press.

Criminal court judges face the very real risk of recriminations from terrorists and gang members, professional criminals with the means to kill them, but their names are known and nowadays we can see them on tv as they pass sentence. I can’t see any good reason for keeping secret the names of family court judges, and the Court of Appeal has agreed that not only must they be named, they should have been named at the outset. I see asking for anonymity as an act of cowardice.

Barleyfields, what good will it do to name the judges. ? How will it make things better ?It is not an act of cowardice at all but sensible precautions to keep family judges from harm from those who are not happy with the decisions.Please keep things in perspective. ~i am sure the work of a family judge is very stressful as well as being very difficult. The judges need our support.

People feel that by hiding under the cloak of anonymity means a lack of accountability. That’s part of it. Also, if these judges make catastrophic errors in their judgements the fact they will be named may make some focus their minds and a different result may happen. It would be better if they were removed from their duties. I’m not sure naming them is the answer. Accountability is.

The Court of Appeal said they had no right to anonymity. The good that naming judges does is to give people confidence in the justice system. It would be wholly wrong imo for judges to be nameless figures hiding behind anonymity.

Another thing to consider is that Family Courts operate in total privacy. This is to protect the children. The rulings of Family Courts are never made public or reported on. Since Family Courts proceedings are never reported on (except in exceptional circumstances such as the Sara Sharif case, where sadly a child has already died and a criminal case has come to court) I cannot see that it would either be possible or desirable for Family Court judges to be named, because that would entail the privacy of the court being breached.
Surely it is in the best interests of the children concerned that that the proceedings are heard in private? And I believe it is also desirable that the judges are also protected. It is already difficult to recruit Family Court judges, why would it be desirable to make recruitment even more difficult?

What is clear to me is they are not suitable at all to their job! They should be fired asap. Their inability to do the job has cost a life. No going back from that.

I just cannot agree. The situation is entirely different from serious criminal cases where protection is given to judges if needful as a matter of course, and all is out in the open as long as the accused is 18 or over.

How does ending anonymity for judges give people more confidence? When privacy is usually central to the actual cases in the courts to protect children?

Accountability is another matter, as there are procedures to appeal decisions.

Wyllow3

Reading the O/P it sounds a bit like its been some journalists in the media trying to uncover matters "in the public interest" but it sounds a bit more like a witch hunt to me for a hungry red top press.

Oh blimey, not again! Not a ‘Red top’ front page of The Telegraph. Yes, I subscribe so why not Wyllow? And it’s NEWS. It’ll. be in the Guardian, the ‘I’ (just checked) the Daily Mail. I don’t think it’s a witch hunt. It’s reporting what the Court of Appeal has said. We can discuss it ourselves and air our thoughts.

I don’t agree that naming the judges would breach the privacy of the court and obviously neither does the Court of Appeal. Of course the proceedings should continue to be heard in private and I have seen no suggestion that that should change. I think a judge who believes they shouldn’t be named after giving a judgment is in the wrong job.

love0c

What is clear to me is they are not suitable at all to their job! They should be fired asap. Their inability to do the job has cost a life. No going back from that.

They acted on information available at the time which was very inadequate. They have had long careers and lots of experience: in retrospect this was the wrong decision, but the idea of automatically throwing blame around and "firing them" is no answer, what matters most is a working system that puts all the information needed in front of them.

Barleyfields

I don’t agree that naming the judges would breach the privacy of the court and obviously neither does the Court of Appeal. Of course the proceedings should continue to be heard in private and I have seen no suggestion that that should change. I think a judge who believes they shouldn’t be named after giving a judgment is in the wrong job.

Yes but unless you are fully aware of the private proceedings in the court that leads the judge to make the decisions they did

people can and will decide they were "wrong" and potentially seeks revenge.

Please read carefully the words of the Appeal Court judgement quoted in the OP. Those words set out what the law is on this issue. Family court judges are obviously not entitled to anonymity so nothing is being changed.

I must admit my eyebrows were raised when I read the part of the judgement from the Appeal Court. They did not mince words in a what which must make Mr Justice Williams either incensed or wholly ashamed. Rare to have a judge have his ruling so completely taken apart. It as quite a judicial kicking from the learned judge.