Human rights—Control order—Anonymity

Supreme Court, Lord Phillips (president), Lord Saville, Lord Rodger, Lord Walker, Lord Brown, Lord Clarke and Sir John Dyson SCJ, 23 June 2010

An interim anonymity order will generally be appropriate at the interim stages of a control order challenge. Such an order should not just be continued automatically, but the need for the order in the particular circumstances should be reviewed at the earliest suitable opportunity.

Edward Fitzgerald  QC and Kate Markus (instructed by Wilson Solicitors LLP) for the appellant. Robin Tam QC, Tim Eicke and Rory Dunlop (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the respondent.

The appellant was subject to a control order, whose terms he challenged before the Supreme Court (see NLJ, 25 June, p 903). The appeal was, in fact, academic so far as the appellant himself was concerned, since in July 2009 the secretary of state had revoked the control order and decided that the appellant should be deported on national