Courts and Tribunals Observers’ Network

In February 2026, Judith Townend (this network’s co-convenor) and Daniel Clark (a member of this network) began a one-year project, “Making Justice Visible”, at the University of Sussex. A strand of that project involves identifying and analysing data gaps in the justice system.

In this document, Daniel Clark sets out missing data in relation to super-injunctions. An injunction is an order of a court that tells a person to do, or not to do, something. A super-injunction, which is or ought to be interim, constrains a person’s ability to disclose the fact that the injunction exists. 

The following is a summary of the key findings:

• In 2011, amidst concerns about the use of super-injunctions, the then Master of the Rolls convened a Committee to consider their use.
• The Committee recommended that data in relation to the prevalence of super-injunctions is published annually. A privacy injunctions statistics form was created so that a judge could record any injunction that derogated from the open justice principle, including (but not limited to) if that injunction has a “super” element.
• This data is, or should be, published twice yearly in the Civil Justice Statistics Quarterly. The statistics purport to demonstrate when a super-injunction is granted, and also whenever the continuation and variation of a super-injunction is considered.
• In 2025, a super-injunction granted to the government was discharged after being in force for a little over 22 months. This poses an opportunity to retrospectively review whether super-injunction data is being collected and stored.
• It appears, though this is unverifiable, that the initial grant of this super-injunction was recorded. The data does not record when the super-injunction was continued. This is likely because the relevant form is not being completed.
• In this specific case, the published statistical data was incomplete. Due to the nature of a super-injunction, it is not possible to know whether this is an anomaly or part of a wider problem.

Questions and comments about this document, and the research project more generally, can be directed to Daniel Clark: Daniel.Clark@sussex.ac.uk.