Privacy and young people: controlling anti-social behaviour through loss of anonymity

Balanced against the fundamental principle that all judicial proceedings should take place in the open in order to foster justice, fairness and transparency, is the recognition that young people are especially vulnerable to harm from publicity. As a result, the ‘open justice’ principle – that anyone can attend court and is free to report on what they see and hear in the court – generally does not apply where the proceedings concern young people. Although there are variations in the legal detail, in the UK and most Australian jurisdictions there are legislative prohibitions on publication of anything that could identify that a young person has been involved in criminal proceedings; exceptions are only permitted when publication is considered to be in the public interest. While the rationale for these restrictions is rarely expressed in terms of protecting the privacy of young people, the concern to avert harm to the young person’s future development is ‘in effect, a specific application of the general right to privacy’.