In October 2020, the Supreme Court heard an appeal. C, an unregistered barrister, represented a charity in his capacity of director.
A copy of the Supreme Court’s draft judgment was circulated to the parties’ representatives, to enable them to make suggestions for the correction of any errors, to prepare submissions on consequential matters, and to prepare themselves for the publication of the judgment.
It was stated on the draft judgment, and in a covering email, that the draft was strictly confidential.
Nonetheless, on the day before the judgment was due to be made public, C sent an email to the Press Association containing a statement in which he disclosed the outcome of the appeal. The statement was also published on the charity’s Twitter account. These disclosures led to the publication of the outcome of the Heathrow appeal in the national media and on Twitter, prior to the judgment being delivered.
C now appealed against a finding of contempt, the imposition of a fine, and costs, asking first, whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to entertain an appeal against orders of the Supreme Court acting as a court of first instance in the exercise of its contempt jurisdiction, and second, whether the First Instance Panel was correct to hold C in contempt of court and to order the amount of costs that it did.
Held: (Lady Arden dissenting) The appeal failed. Section 13 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 gives a right of appeal from an exercise by the Supreme Court of its contempt jurisdiction, acting at first instance. Section 13 gives such a right of appeal from any court (subject to irrelevant exceptions) and expressly includes the Supreme Court within the meaning of ‘court’. It is not a conceptual impossibility to appeal from one panel of the Supreme Court to another larger panel. The contempt finding was proper and stood.
Lord Briggs
Lady Arden
Lord Kitchin
Lord Burrows
Lady Rose
[2021] UKSC 58
Bailii
England and Wales
Contempt of Court, Costs
Updated: 16 January 2022; Ref: scu.671050