Ellenbogen: Three rulings still outstanding
A senior High Court judge has been issued with a reprimand for delays of up to 13 months in handing down five judgments.
Mrs Justice Naomi Ellenbogen, who is the presiding judge for the Northern Circuit, repeatedly failed to meet commitments she made to parties and to senior judges as to when the judgments would be completed, according to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO).
The judge was an employment and commercial barrister who took silk in 2010. She was joint head of Littleton Chambers and served as vice-chair of the Bar Standards Board. She became a High Court judge in 2020.
A JCIO notice published yesterday said she accepted the importance of delivering judgments promptly and apologised for the delays.
“While acknowledging that she had underestimated the time required to complete the judgments, she attributed the delays to workload issues which led to a cumulative backlog.
“She submitted that the complexity of the cases and her wider workload necessitated greater time to be allocated for judgment-writing and at the appropriate time. She argued that, in those circumstances, the delays should not be regarded as misconduct.”
But Dame Naomi accepted that communication with the parties “could have been more proactive” and she expressed regret for this, citing workload pressures and personal circumstances as contributing factors.
The judge tasked by the JCIO with investigating decided that her actions amounted to misconduct and recommended that she receive a reprimand.
The investigation highlighted that three judgments remained outstanding and that none of the cases were out of the ordinary for a King’s Bench Division judge either in terms of length or complexity – and, in December 2025, Ellenbogen J accepted that she had already had a significant amount of judgment writing time.
Further, she had repeatedly failed to meet commitments made to the parties and to senior judges as to when the judgments would be completed. “The judge had been given work outside of London on the faith of a (broken) promise to circulate three of the judgments by the end of June 2025,” the investigation found.
It also took into account the judge’s history of significant delays in earlier cases.
Mitigating factors included Dame Naomi’s regret for the delays.
The JCIO said: “The Lord Chancellor and Lady Chief Justice noted that, at the time of their decision in October 2026, three judgments remained outstanding.
“After careful consideration, the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice concluded that this was serious misconduct and agreed with the recommendation of the nominated judge that a reprimand was the appropriate and proportionate sanction.”
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