AC-2025-LON-003558 - [2025] EWHC 2688 (Admin)

I explained at the start of the Teams hearing that it was my provisional intention to list this case for a resumption in open court at the Royal Courts of Justice, on the morning of Friday 17 October 2025. I am delivering this judgment at that resumption hearing. I was minded to resume in open court, whatever the outcome of the urgent applications with which I was dealing. This course of action was supported by both advocates.

There were two reasons for having a resumption hearing. Neither of them is concerned with the outcome. The same course would have been appropriate whether the application for interim relief had been granted at the Teams hearing, or if it had been refused at that hearing. Neither of the reasons was concerned with hearing further submissions or making any further decision. I have not heard further submissions. I have not made any further decision. I am not making any further Court order.

The first reason was open justice. Because of the timing of the applications and the need to deal urgently with them in an out of hours remote hearing, there was necessarily no prospect of any public hearing in open court, or any published listing information. I suppose it may be possible that a member of the press or public could make the Court aware of an interest in a particular type of case and might ask – prospectively – to be alerted to any out of hours Teams hearing and then permitted to attend it. That may be a matter for consideration. It did not happen here. I was conscious that no member of the public or press would know anything about the hearing. That may often be the case when the Court is dealing with an extremely urgent case out of hours. It would have been different had the claim been filed at an earlier stage, and had the Court been dealing with the case during the court day.

All of this has implications for open justice. Courts are duty-bound to consider those implications, independently of any position taken by the parties. I took the view that it was in the interests of open justice and the public interest that the Court should make arrangements promptly to be able to list a public resumption hearing, at which the Judge could explain the nature of the case, the applications that were made and heard, and what the Court had done. I was conscious that I would have been able to release a written judgment, published in the cause list, which would have furthered these aims. But a resumption hearing was even better. As I have said, the parties’ representatives were not required to attend. Remote attendance was facilitated. Many are in attendance.

The second reason was concerned with the reasons for my ruling. I was also conscious that I may be in a position at the end of the Teams hearing where I needed to announce my ruling and make my order, but with reasons – or amplified reasons – to follow. In the CTK case, as it happens, the Court of Appeal had announced its decision and then later explained its reasons in more detail. Had the second reason stood alone, I would probably just have released a written judgment, published in the cause list.