In April last year, the Lady Chief Justice set up a new Transparency and Open Justice Board, chaired by Mr Justice Nicklin. It aims to lead and coordinate the promotion of transparency and open justice across the courts and tribunals of England & Wales and support and coordinate a programme of changes to promote transparency and open justice. The Board has established a stakeholder committee to assist in this work. There are some TP members on that stakeholder group.
Separately, the MoJ had put out a call for evidence on open justice back in May 2023; a summary of this was published last month, ‘Open Justice: the way forward’. This summary made a number of references to public concerns about the lack of published judgments and other information about family courts. These included:
‘… some respondents raised the perceived secrecy within the family court, raising this as a key jurisdiction where the government should look to enhance and uphold transparency. Various academics and civil society groups raised concerns that the lack of scrutiny in the family courts, and the use of self-declared experts, meant issues around domestic abuse were not properly understood with consequences for child-residency cases. These respondents felt the perceived secrecy of the family jurisdiction enabled the courts to be systemically biased against women.’
We think the summary reflects ongoing lack of confidence in family justice, despite recent improvements in transparency. Although the summary concludes with a section ‘Next steps’, there are in fact no further steps itemised.
Meantime. the Board has consulted on what its key objectives should be.
Para 1 of the proposed objectives reads:
The principles of transparency and open justice require the proceedings and decisions of Courts and Tribunals to be open and accessible to the public and the media. On a practical level this should include:
(1) timely and effective access to information about cases that are pending before a Court or Tribunal including:
(a) identification of the principal subject matter of the case and, if available, the date of the next hearing;
(b) for each hearing that has been scheduled:
▪ the identity of the case (including the names of the parties);
▪ the Court or Tribunal before which the hearing is to take place;
▪ where the hearing is to take place;
▪ the date and time of the hearing;
▪ the general nature of the hearing, e.g. application, case
management hearing, or trial;
▪ whether the hearing is to be held in public;
and, when known,
▪ the name(s) of the judge(s)/magistrate(s)/tribunal member(s)
hearing the case; and
(c) details of any reporting restrictions that apply to a case and the terms of any restrictions.
(2) timely and effective access to the core documents relating to the proceedings held by the Court or Tribunal, including:
(a) the document that identifies the principal subject matter of the case e.g. a Claim Form or Appeal Notice in a civil or tribunal case, or the Summons or Indictment in a criminal case;
(b) the evidence (including any expert and/or audio/visual evidence) that is, or has been, considered by the Court or Tribunal at a hearing in public;
(c) any written submissions (including skeleton arguments) that are, or have been, considered by the Court or Tribunal at a hearing in public; and
(d) any public judgments or Orders of the Court or Tribunal.
(3) effective access to hearings of Courts and Tribunals held in public, including:
(a) enabling members of the public and media representatives to attend the hearing in person (including maintaining designated spaces for media representatives) or remotely by video link where appropriate;
(b) permitting, where appropriate, broadcasting of the whole or part of the hearing; and
(c) enabling transcripts to be obtained
You can read a copy of our response here. Basically we agree with Para 1 above and have suggested a few small extensions relevant to family courts and legal blogging. For example, we’ve asked that ‘in public’ in 1(3) be amended to include those allowed to attend hearings held in private.
There are two other ‘objectives’ included in the document which we don’t view as such, as they deal with limitations on open justice and with restraints on resources that will be provided by the MoJ, rather than measurable objectives.
We’ll report back on the Board’s future work.