Transparency and Open Justice Board publishes proposed key objectives

On Friday 6 December, the Transparency and Open Justice Board, which was created by the Lady Chief Justice earlier this year, published proposed key objectives to guide the Board's work.

The key objectives state that 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, which on a practical level includes timely and effective access to: (i) information about pending cases; (ii) the core documents relating to the proceedings; and (iii) public hearings. The "core documents" identified include any evidence and any written submissions, in each case where they are, or have been, considered by the court or tribunal at a public hearing.

The explanatory notes to the key objectives recognise that there are important issues as to the stage at which a core document should become publicly available, for example, "skeleton arguments and witness statements would ordinarily only become available publicly once they have been relied upon in proceedings in open court". The notes explain, however, that at this stage the Board is concerned only with what documents should be available, and issues of timing will be a matter for consideration when the key objectives are reflected in any changes in the procedural rules.

It is interesting, nonetheless, that the Board's key objectives refer to the need for access to evidence and submissions that "are, or have been, considered" at a public hearing. This contrasts with the rule proposed by the Civil Procedure Rule Committee (CPRC) in February this year (considered here), which appeared to give a default right to access skeleton arguments, witness statements and expert reports before they had played any part in the court's decision making process, and when they might never do so (if the matter was subsequently resolved without a hearing).

Following the creation of the Transparency and Open Justice Board, the CPRC's work on the rules relating to public access to court documents was paused to allow the Board to conduct this first phase of its work. No doubt the next stage of the CPRC's work will be informed by the key objectives identified by the Board, as well as responses to its own consultation – a number of which (including our own) identified concerns at the proposed new rule going further than is necessary or desirable to achieve the important aim of open justice.

The Transparency and Open Justice Board has invited any comments on the proposed key objectives to be submitted by 28 February 2025.