“Severe Mental-Health Risk Trumps Open Justice” – A Commentary on
SA v Secretary of State for the Home Department
([2025] EWCA Civ 1065)

1. Introduction

The Court of Appeal in SA v SSHD grappled with an archetypal collision between the constitutional principle of open justice and the personal rights of a profoundly vulnerable litigant. The appellant (“SA”), whose refugee status had already been revoked, had long benefitted from anonymity orders through successive immigration proceedings. Associated Newspapers Ltd (“ANL”), publisher of the Daily Mail, sought to lift every extant anonymity order and to obtain wide disclosure of the underlying tribunal materials. Their essential argument: the public had a right to know the identity of a woman who, the tribunals concluded, had fabricated her asylum story and whose case had attracted press interest more than a decade earlier.

SA, however, is a protected party lacking capacity and suffering from chronic schizo-affective disorder. Her counsel contended that exposure would trigger a serious relapse. The appeal court therefore had to decide whether, on contemporary evidence, derogating from open justice remained “necessary” and “proportionate” under Re S balancing principles.

The decision now sets a high-water mark for the weight to be given to serious mental-health risk when courts assess applications to discharge anonymity in immigration and other public-law contexts, even where fraud and historic publicity loom large.

2. Summary of the Judgment

1. The court unanimously refused ANL’s application to discharge all anonymity orders.
2. The decisive factor was fresh and historic medical evidence demonstrating that naming SA would likely cause a marked deterioration in her already fragile psychological state, potentially triggering psychosis and suicidality.
3. The court held that—although open justice and the media’s Article 10 rights carry “very substantial weight”—those interests were outweighed here by SA’s Article 8 rights to physical and psychological integrity.
4. Consequently, the court also refused ANL’s request for unredacted tribunal materials. Only redacted judgments and skeleton arguments were to be supplied.
5. The court reaffirmed that immigration litigants enjoy no a priori anonymity; it must be justified. Yet, once justified on current evidence, the orders remain defensible even if prior grounds (e.g., fear of persecution) have evaporated.

3. Analytical Discussion

3.1 Precedents and Authorities Cited

• Cape Intermediate Holdings v Dring [2019] UKSC 38 – framework for non-party access to court documents.
• Tickle v Surrey CC [2025] EWCA Civ 42 – authoritative synthesis of open-justice principles, endorsed here.
• PMC v A Local Health Board [2024] EWHC 2969 (KB) – Nicklin J’s exposition on starting with “very substantial weight” for open justice, quoted with approval.
• Re S (A Child) [2005] AC 593 – “intense focus” balancing between Article 8 and Article 10 rights.
• Khuja v Times Newspapers [2019] AC 161 – collateral impact of court process is usually part of the “price” of open justice.
• Guidance (CA): Anonymity in Asylum & Immigration Cases [2022] 1 WLR 2023 – starting point: appellants should expect to be named unless justified.
• Miscellaneous: Scott v Scott, Cape, Von Hannover, Kaboglu, etc., referenced for doctrinal completeness.

The Court found these authorities congruent: open justice is fundamental but not absolute; derogations demand cogent evidence. The novelty in SA lies in the weight assigned to psychiatric evidence in the particular matrix of immigration fraud and historic publicity.

3.2 The Court’s Legal Reasoning

1. Starting Presumption: Applying Tickle and PMC, the court reaffirmed that the “scales do not start evenly balanced”; open justice enjoys a significant presumptive weight.
2. Updated Evidential Picture: The original anonymity was based on (i) asylum protection and (ii) supposed child-marriage sexual-offence victim status. Those foundations collapsed once SA’s account was found false. The only live justification was mental-health risk.
3. Threshold of Harm: Citing ECtHR case-law (Kaboglu, Von Hannover), the court held that Article 8 is engaged if there is “a real risk” of undermining physical or psychological integrity.
4. Cogency of Medical Evidence: The Consultant Psychologist’s 26 June 2025 letter was specific, tracing a causal link between past publicity and psychiatric crisis. Coupled with FtT-endorsed reports (2021–2023) it satisfied the “clear and cogent” test.
5. Proportionality Analysis:
   • Article 10 factors: significant public interest in exposing immigration fraud; judge-critical comments in earlier High Court litigation; partial jigsaw identification already possible.
   • Article 8 factors: protected party, chronic schizo-affective disorder, lengthy detention under Mental Health Act, risk of recurrence of psychosis/suicidality, absence of effective less-intrusive measures.
   The court placed determinative weight on the severity and immediacy of predicted harm.
6. Ineffectiveness Argument Rejected: The fact that some informed readers could deduce SA’s identity did not render continued anonymity “pointless.” Orders remain valuable in reducing scale and speed of dissemination and protecting against wide republication by mainstream media.
7. Document Disclosure: Applying Cape v Dring, the court looked at (i) the “touchstone of participation”, and (ii) necessity to advance the open-justice purpose. Skeletons yes (redacted), evidential bundles no.

3.3 Impact of the Judgment

• Enhanced Weight for Serious Mental-Health Harm: The decision crystallises that compelling psychiatric evidence can tip the balance even where (a) the litigant’s own misconduct is newsworthy, (b) prior publicity exists, and (c) the original anonymity rationale evaporates.
• Guidance for Media Interventions: Press organisations must be prepared to confront not only the legal but medical strata of evidence. Where experts root harm in prior press exposure, media applicants may need counter-evidence.
• Practice for Protected Parties: Deputies and litigation friends should collate focused psychiatric material tying anonymity directly to contemplated publicity.
• Tribunal & Court Procedure: Applications to vary anonymity should be brought promptly; challenges to historic tribunal orders may be barred by delay. Anonymity in immigration remains fact-specific and revisitable, but now with clarified parameters.
• Non-Party Access: Reinforces a calibrated approach—granting key legal documents (skeletons, judgments) while declining wholesale evidential disclosure unless necessary for open-justice objectives.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Open Justice

The constitutional principle that court proceedings and documents are public, ensuring transparency and accountability.

Article 8 ECHR

Right to respect for private and family life; includes physical and psychological integrity.

Article 10 ECHR

Right to freedom of expression; underpinning the media’s ability to report on court proceedings.

Re S Balancing Exercise

A judicial task (from Re S (A Child)) requiring intense focus on comparative importance of competing rights (here, Art 8 vs Art 10) to determine necessity and proportionality of any restriction.

Protected Party & Deputy

A litigant lacking capacity is a “protected party.” The Court of Protection may appoint a Deputy (often a solicitor) to make decisions and conduct litigation on their behalf.

Schizo-affective Disorder

A chronic mental illness combining mood disorder symptoms (e.g. depression) with psychosis (e.g. delusions, hallucinations). Stressors such as media exposure can trigger acute episodes.

Non-Party Disclosure (Cape v Dring)

The Supreme Court affirmed that non-parties can apply for access to court documents where it advances open justice, but courts retain discretion and must assess necessity and proportionality.

5. Conclusion

SA v SSHD is not a wholesale re-writing of open-justice doctrine, but it sharpens the lens on how courts weigh evidence-based mental-health risk against the press’s legitimate interest in naming litigants. The Court of Appeal’s refusal to lift anonymity—despite the alluring public-interest narrative of immigration fraud—signals to practitioners and media alike that:

• Open justice retains primacy, yet it is not unassailable.
• Where an individual’s psychological integrity faces a demonstrable, severe threat, the cloak of anonymity may endure.
• Historic publicity does not automatically dismantle later privacy protection.
• Applications to vary anonymity orders must be rigorously evidenced, timely, and mindful of the medical dimension.

Going forward, the decision will likely be cited whenever courts confront the “open justice vs mental-health” dialectic, particularly in immigration, family, and civil fraud spheres. It offers a structured template: start with open justice, scrutinise the medical evidence, balance with care, and prioritise real-world harm over abstract curiosity.