High Court judge uses emoji in official ruling

A recent article in The Telegraph caught my eye.
It is the kind of document in which one might expect to find daunting legal terminology,
interspersed with Latin phrases or even a smattering of Norman French.

But one High Court judge has gone to previously unheard-of lengths to make a judgment in a
family court case comprehensible even for the children it affects – by replacing dry terminology
with a battery of down-to-earth phrases and even a smiley face symbol.

The ruling handed down by Mr Justice Peter Jackson and published online is thought to be the
first in English legal history to incorporate an emoji, or web symbol, to explain a point of
evidence.

In what is being hailed as an exemplary instance of plain English, Sir Peter carefully navigates
issues from domestic abuse to religious fundamentalism and even a complex anti-terrorist
investigation in a brief 17-page ruling which he said he hoped the children would read for
themselves.

It explains to the children, aged 10 and 12, why they should have only limited contact with
their father, a white British Muslim convert who, the judge said, wanted to spirit them off to
Syria under the guise of a trip to Disneyland Paris.

The father, who can be named only as Mr A for legal reasons, was facing trial for trying to buy
guns and ammunition when the judgment was drafted earlier this year. It is understood he has
since been convicted.
It describes Mr A as a “loudmouth” and a “bigot” who talked “nonsense” about supposedly being
persecuted for his faith and saw himself as the victim of a conspiracy by “sneaky liars” in the
police and social services.

The children’s mother, who also cannot be identified, is described as having been “under Mr A’s
thumb” – one of the main reasons why he was deemed a risk to the children – and that he had “got
inside her head” making it hard for her to “see what everyone else can see”.

Others involved in the case include a teacher who was left “frightened to death” by his
threatening behavior.

Before detailing the evidence, the judgment attempts to allay fears about the courts the
children may have had.
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