Giving the keynote speech at the Society of Editors 25th anniversary conference on 30 April 2024 the Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr of Walton-On-The-Hill, announced the establishment of a new Transparency and Open Justice Board, to be chaired by Mr Justice Nicklin. She said:
“8. Its aim is to examine and modernise our approach to open justice, not least to ensure that we take proper account of wider societal changes as well as those being effected by the courts. It will set objectives for all Courts and Tribunals, focussing on timely and effective access in terms of listing, documents and public hearings. It will engage with the public and interested parties to make sure that these objectives properly reflect what should be delivered by a modern justice system.
9. Historically, work relevant to open justice has been dealt with piecemeal by reference to individual jurisdictions. As I have said, the Board’s remit covers all Courts and Tribunals. It will be looking in particular at what can be done to increase public and media access. That our courts are open to the press is as important as being open to the public.
10. The judiciary and media share a common duty: we are and must continue to be the guardians of open justice. The greatest threat comes not from direct attack on the principle, but rather from careless – sometimes inadvertent – failures to protect its ideals. I intend the judiciary to step up, continuing to play our important constitutional role of protecting and promoting open justice as an essential element of the rule of law. The Board that I have established will take this important work forward, and I am delighted to be publishing its terms of reference today. It will review and challenge the way that the judiciary works and ensure that openness and transparency is at the heart of what we do. We will renew the promise that justice will not only be done, but will be seen to be done.”
Terms of Reference
The Terms of Reference of the Board reiterate that
“Justice must be done, and it must be seen to be done. The public has a right to know what happens in their Courts and Tribunals. For all Courts and Tribunals, the overriding objective is to deal with cases justly. Confidence in that process is built on the principles of transparency and open justice.”
After announcing the membership of the Board, mostly judges or people working within the Judicial Office, the terms of reference include a specific requirement “To establish a Stakeholder Committee to assist the Board”. They also speak of “wide engagement with interested parties” before finalising the Key Objectives to be promoted across courts and tribunals in England & Wales.
Comment
We certainly welcome and support this new development, which appears designed to look at all jurisdictions holistically and not in separate silos. We feel we can contribute and we hope and expect, both collectively and by reference to our individual organisations and interests, to be invited to participate in the promised Stakeholder Committee.
Such a committee cannot simply rely on representatives from the media, like previous open justice initiatives, but should also include legal bloggers, civil society, academic researchers and interested members of the public. Without this additional input, matters will be overlooked and mistakes will be made, as experience has shown (an obvious example being the so-called Guidance which was the subject of our recent Open Letter to the LCJ).
As a group we can offer experience from all the different court jurisdictions (Criminal, Civil, Family and Court of Protection, as well as Tribunals) in relation to a range of problems relating to open justice and transparency, including listing, reporting restrictions, the protection of vulnerable persons, access to documents, access to remote hearings, court security etc. Many of these problems occur in different ways according to the type of court or tribunal jurisdiction, so the width of our collective experience is especially valuable.
More importantly, many of the problems we have faced derive from our not being “accredited journalists” whose access to hearings and materials is often privileged under court rules. The committee needs to hear what it’s like for those who don’t share such privileged access.
We can also attest to open justice developments affecting our particular areas of expertise that have proved successful in recent years, such as the introduction of Transparency Orders in the Court of Protection and, more recently, the Family Court under pilot schemes which have eventually matured into permanent changes of the rules.
In short, we think open justice must be looked at both holistically and by reference to the particular problems of all the separate individual jurisdictions, and all the different types of observer affected.
Courts and Tribunals Observers Network is an initiative supported by the Sheila Kitzinger Programme, University of Oxford, focuses on Open Justice and Courts and Tribunals Observation and Access, building on UK civil society and legal policy work on technological changes to the justice system
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