GSTS Pathology LLP, R (on the application of) v Revenue & Customs

The court has power to control the form and content of a judgment after it has been delivered orally, but the principle of open justice requires compelling reasons for withholding reasoning or evidence referred to in an open hearing. A party seeking deletion of information already mentioned publicly faces a particularly difficult task, especially where the judgment has been pronounced. The published judgment should generally correspond to the reasons given orally, subject to necessary corrections. Commercial sensitivity alone did not justify removing information which was relevant to the court’s assessment of financial detriment and central to the reasons for granting interim relief.

The claimants applied after an oral judgment on their application for interim relief. Before publication of the transcript, they asked the court to remove commercially sensitive information concerning GSTS’s unaudited accounts and the potential effect of a proposed change in tax treatment on its business.

The defendant took a neutral position. The information had been contained in evidence, referred to in written submissions and addressed during an open hearing. The issue was whether the transcript should be altered to protect confidentiality while preserving the principle of open justice.

1. Power to alter judgment. The court had power to control the form in which its judgment was published and to alter the content of a judgment after it had been delivered orally. The decision in Re L and R (children) [2013] UKSC 8 demonstrated that, before the order was drawn up and perfected, even the result could in principle be changed.
2. Open justice. It was a fundamental aspect of open justice that all the reasoning leading to the court’s conclusions should be publicly available. Compelling reasons were required for departing from that principle, as illustrated by R (Mohamed) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (No 2) [2011] QB 218. The published reasons should correspond, subject to necessary corrections, with those heard in open court.
3. Timing and prior publicity. A request to delete information already referred to in a public hearing was inherently difficult. The objection might be too late if confidentiality had already been lost. The parties’ opportunity to review a draft judgment was intended to identify errors and address consequential matters, not to permit substantive submissions about which facts should support the judgment.
4. Application. The court accepted that the information had not in fact entered the public domain merely because it was mentioned in court, but found no sufficient reason to omit it. The latest unaudited accounts were the best available information about GSTS’s current financial position. The potential serious damage to GSTS’s business was central to the grant of interim relief, and explaining the specific facts supporting that conclusion served open justice. The transcript was therefore ordered to be published without alteration. The approach was consistent with the inherent jurisdiction recognised in R (Guardian News and Media Ltd) v City of Westminster Magistrates Court [2012] EWCA Civ 420.