Category: court reporting
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Open Letter to the LCJ: HMCTS guidance on public access to courts
Dear Lady Chief Justice, We write on behalf of the Courts and Tribunals Observers’ Network, a UK-based initiative focused on how the public can be supported to observe courts and access court information in digital and physical environments, to express our concerns about a guidance document (“the Guide”) entitled “How…
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Fine words – but new HMCTS public guidance falls short
HMCTS recently launched a document entitled “How you can attend or access courts or tribunals — a guide for members of the public”. It is not clear whether this is intended to be the “Charter summarising the existing rules that facilitate public access to court and tribunal hearings and information”…
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Open Justice Today – speech by the Lord Chief Justice
In his recent speech, the outgoing Lord Chief Justice for England & Wales described how “sunlight is the best disinfectant” but was his perspective on open justice rather rosier than reality? Paul Magrath assesses the evidence. In one of his last speeches before retiring as the head of the judiciary…
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Report: Courts and Tribunals Access and Observation Workshop
We are pleased to publish our report following the Courts and Tribunals Access and Observation Workshop held at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. Our report discusses challenges of court observation and issues of public participation in the courtroom, where some of the key questions are: ‘access to what, by…
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Welcome to the Courts and Tribunals Observers’ Network
This initiative, funded by the Sheila Kitzinger Programme, 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. The convenor is Dr Judith Townend, University of Sussex. One of our central questions is…
Courts and Tribunals Observers’ Network 