Solicitors are cleared to wear veils in court

Female solicitors and legal advisers should be allowed to wear the Islamic veil in court unless it interferes with "the interests of justice", judges have been told.

The interim guidance was issued yesterday aftera case this week in which Shabnam Mughal, a legal advisor to an immigration tribunal in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, refused to remove her full-face veil, or niqab, when asked to do so by Judge George Glossop. Judge Glossop then sought advice from the president of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT), Mr Justice Hodge.

Publishing his guidance, Mr Justice Hodge said: "If a representative before an AIT tribunal wishes to wear a veil ... then the representative should be allowed to do so. [But] if a judge ... is unable to hear the representative clearly then the interests of justice are not served."

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, has asked a judicial committee to draw up rules on the issue.