The Appellant provided two documents to the Claimants, her relatives, in wrongful and unfair dismissal proceedings which took place in March 2018. Whilst the Appellant had previously been employed by the Respondent to the dismissal proceedings, she was neither a witness nor a party to the claims. The dismissal judgment stated that employees had been fearful of the Appellant’s behaviour and that she had been suspected of offences of dishonesty which had been referred to the police whilst employed by the Respondent. The Appellant submitted an application on 13 December 2018 under Rule 50 of the Employment Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2013 seeking an order that her name be anonymised or redacted in the dismissal judgment, which was refused by the Employment Tribunal (ET) on 12 August 2019.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) allowed the appeal. The ET had erred in law in two respects. First, the fact that information regarding the Appellant’s identity was considered at a public hearing did not mean that the Appellant’s Article 8 rights under the European Convention on Human Rights were not engaged. The Appellant had relied on the reputational element of Article 8; namely, the distress related to how her name would now be reflected online through internet searches. Second, the ET had not adequately balanced the correct factors when deciding if the interference with the Appellant’s Article 8 rights was justified. In particular, the ET failed to identify that the Article 8 rights were engaged, the degree of impact on the Appellant, the proportionality of the interference with her Article 8 rights if her application was rejected and with rights related to open justice if the application succeeded. The EAT held that the Appellant’s Article 8 rights were engaged insofar as they concern the right to protection of reputation and privacy. Whether the application should be granted, however, was remitted back to the ET on the basis that there was a lack of fact-finding in relation to the impact on the Appellant.