This was a first.

A judge called security to remove me from her courtroom after I challenged her authority to kick me out.

It was an open court. I am not a witness. There is no publication ban.

The judge — Justice Mary Jo McLaren, presiding in the Unified Family Court — wouldn’t explain why she told me to leave.

“All courts are presumptively open to the public — even family court,” says Brian Rogers, lawyer for the Hamilton Spectator. “It’s extraordinary to have what amounts to a secret proceeding in any courtroom.”

Let me start from the beginning.

That would be back in September, when the Safdar domestic violence trial began in criminal court.

I have written extensively about this bizarre and record-long case unfolding in front of Justice Andrew Goodman, who alone will determine a verdict.

In a nutshell, the complicated case is this: Sara Salim says her husband and his family tortured and abused her at their home in Binbrook.

The Safdar family says Sara was mentally ill, caused all her injuries to herself — including a broken jaw — and made up a story of abuse to win her 4-year-old daughter back in a custody battle.

The child, whom I have chosen not to name, is currently in the custody of her father, Adeel Safdar, who lives with the two other accused.

Adeel, 38, is charged with assault, assault with a weapon, assault bodily harm, threatening death and aggravated assault.

His mother, Shaheen Safdar, 63, faces the same charges.

His brother, Aatif Safdar, 36, is charged with assault bodily harm, assault with a weapon, assault and threatening death.

The family court matter raises an issue that is in the public interest: How can the same people charged with some of the most serious and violent Criminal Code offences have care of a small child?

Last December, at about the time I informed Sara, Adeel, Shaheen and Aatif that I was about to publish my first story on their criminal case, a sealing order was placed on their family court case, preventing anyone from accessing its documents.

The law says any time a discretionary restriction on access to court — such as a publication ban, exclusion order or sealing order — is sought in Superior Court, notification should be given publicly to allow anyone wishing to contest it to make a motion.

No such notification was made.

It wasn’t until I tried to access documents in family court that I learned of the sealing order. I asked for a copy of the sealing order. My request was denied. The sealing order itself was inside the sealed file.

Enter Brian Rogers. He says sealing orders should not be sealed. How can we know their terms? We have spent months trying to find out basic details of the order.

The court refused to tell us the next court date so we could attend in person.

As luck has it, the criminal court case discussed the family court case last Friday. I was there to hear it. The family court trial was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. However, Adeel needed to be back in criminal court at noon. I decided to go to both.

The minute I walked into the family courtroom everyone was uneasy. Lawyer Virginia Mendez da Costa asked if I knew there was a sealing order. I said I did. Court staff informed one another who I am. And when Justice McLaren entered, her first order of business was to deal with me.

Susan Clairmont, I know who you are, she said.

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She told me about the sealing order and an order excluding witnesses. She said the day’s matter wouldn’t take long and would end up in an adjournment. They would be discussing a lawyer’s health. (I was already well aware Sara’s lawyer has a health issue that will likely prevent him from continuing with the case.) So, if I wouldn’t mind leaving, someone would fill me in later.

I said I would like to stay. Court is open to the public. I am not a witness. A sealing order isn’t the same as a publication ban or an exclusion order.

Could I please have a copy of the sealing order? (I never did get one.) And could Justice McLaren please advise me under what authority she was asking me to leave?

Her answer was that it is her courtroom and she can make me leave.

Later, I asked Rogers about that. “There’s no doubt that a Superior Court judge has control over the courtroom and can direct people to leave if they are interfering with the proceedings,” he says. However, someone who is simply sitting and observing is not interfering.

Rogers goes further. Our justice system honours the open court principle and recognizes a journalist’s presence in the courtroom “can be a very important aspect of ensuring an open justice system.”

Journalists sit and observe in courtrooms all the time even if they can’t write about the proceedings due to a publication ban. (There is no such ban on the Safdar case in either court.)

The Child and Family Services Act, which deals with custody matters involving children in need of protection, allows journalists to sit in, says Rogers. In fact, that act protects the role of the media by presuming journalists can stay even when members of the general public are excluded, and even though there is a ban on identifying the parties involved, he says.

“Journalists are the public’s eyes and ears,” Rogers says.

Could I have an opportunity, Your Honour, to contact my lawyer?

I was told no by Justice McLaren because she didn’t want to waste time.

It was around then that she called for a special constable to come and remove me. (The same officer I’d just had a pleasant walk with from the John Sopinka Courthouse over to family court.)

I left under my own steam and sat outside the courtroom until it was time to go to the Safdars’ criminal court case, where I am free to report on everything.

The greatest irony of all is I had no plans to write a word from family court. I went simply to observe.

But now I’ve written this.