SDT refuses a late request to reopen a private SLAPP hearing to the public
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has refused to hear a late application seeking to reopen a private hearing to the public. The tribunal said the request came too late and had already been addressed a month earlier. The decision was given at the start of two additional days scheduled for the disciplinary proceedings concerning solicitor Christopher Mark Hutchings.
Hutchings, a partner at London firm Hamlins LLP who was admitted in nineteen ninety two, faces allegations that he told Solicitor G that counsel had advised that Client A had a strong case for contempt proceedings. The allegation is that this statement was untruthful and dishonest. He denies all wrongdoing. The hearing originally proceeded in public with an anonymity order granted in June to protect legal professional privilege. This also meant that material relating to a consent order, a telephone call and related events would be heard in private.
Following the first day of the substantive hearing in October, a report published online by The Times identified individuals covered by the anonymity order. The article was later removed. After submissions from the Law Society Gazette and other parties, the tribunal ruled that the remainder of the hearing should be in private because it could not adequately protect the privilege of Client B during a public session. As a result, the hearing moved entirely into private session and additional dates were listed because the privacy issues prevented completion within the original time allocated.
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One day before the adjourned hearing resumed, the Good Law Project announced that it was assisting civil society organisations seeking to protect the ability to report on alleged wrongdoing within the legal profession. It stated that leading counsel had been instructed and said those counsel would highlight what it described as the irony of journalists being unable to report on proceedings that involve an allegation of improper conduct intended to silence a journalist.
At the start of todays hearing, the tribunal sat in public to hear submissions on an application to reopen the session. Anthony Hudson KC, representing the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Foreign Policy Centre and Spotlight on Corruption, said the matter should be reconsidered. He said the organisations he represented had not been given a proper opportunity to make submissions earlier. He added that if the tribunal were willing to revisit the issue it would also need to consider whether audio recordings of private sessions should be disclosed.
For Hutchings, Ben Hubble KC argued that the tribunal should refuse the application. He said the tribunal had already heard from parties, a member of the public and the press. He also said that Spotlight on Corruption had been present at the October hearing and could have made submissions at that time.
The panel retired briefly before refusing the application. Tribunal chair Lisa Boyce said the application was late and no explanation had been given for the delay between the end of the October hearing and correspondence dated seventeen November. She noted that the substantive hearing was nearly complete and that only closing submissions remained. She said hearing the application at this point would conflict with the tribunal’s overriding objective.
The hearing continues in private.