Solicitors Regulation Authority v Spector

Open justice applies to disciplinary tribunals as it does to courts. Hearings and judgments should ordinarily identify the parties, and anonymity requires a compelling justification grounded in the administration of justice or applicable rights. The fact that allegations were rejected, or that any breach was minor and attracted no sanction, does not justify anonymity.

In disciplinary costs matters, the ordinary civil rule that costs follow the event does not apply automatically. Costs against a regulator require improper proceedings or comparable circumstances. An appellate court should interfere only where the tribunal misdirected itself, acted outside the reasonable range, or reached an irrational conclusion.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority challenged the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal’s decision to anonymise Richard Spector after it found one technical breach proved but imposed no sanction. It used an appeal under Solicitors Act 1974 section 49 and judicial review, with the latter becoming unnecessary after the Tribunal raised no jurisdictional objection.

Spector cross-appealed the Tribunal’s refusal to order the SRA to pay his costs and sought disclosure shortly before the hearing. The central issues were whether anonymity was legally justified, whether the Tribunal’s costs decision was wrong, and whether disclosure was necessary.

1. Anonymity. The SRA’s appeal was allowed and the SDT’s anonymity decision was quashed. Open justice is a fundamental common-law principle. It includes public access to hearings, free reporting, and identification of parties and witnesses. The principle applies equally to the SDT.
2. A tribunal with power to sit in private may, where justified, adopt a less intrusive anonymity procedure. The starting point remains full openness. A departure requires a judgment between competing demands and must be necessary in the interests of the administration of justice or to avoid a Convention violation. No such justification existed here.
3. The SDT gave insufficient weight to open justice. Its publication policy, the absence of a substantial sanction, and consistency with SRA v Grindrod did not justify anonymity. If a summary risks misleading readers, it should be corrected rather than the respondent anonymised. The order also conflicted with the SRA’s statutory transparency duty under Legal Services Act 2007 section 28(3)(a).
4. The proceedings had been public, the respondent had been named in hearing lists, and his identity was already discoverable from public material. The court therefore held that there was no reason why he should not be identified.
5. Costs. The cross-appeal was dismissed. Under section 47(2)(i) of the Solicitors Act 1974, the SDT had a broad costs power, but the ordinary civil rule that costs follow the event did not apply directly. Baxendale-Walker v Law Society established that costs against a regulator should not ordinarily be ordered merely because properly brought disciplinary proceedings failed.
6. Under Law Society v Adcock, appellate interference with a disciplinary costs decision is rare. The SDT had applied the correct principles and given detailed reasons. Its conclusion that the case was not a shambles from start to finish was not irrational. A finding that there is a case to answer is different from the ultimate question whether allegations are proved. The disclosure application was refused as late, overbroad and unnecessary.

High Court (Administrative Court): the SRA’s appeal against the SDT’s anonymity decision was allowed and the decision quashed. The cross-appeal on costs was dismissed. The judicial review application was withdrawn, and the disclosure application was refused.