Sean Mosby
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Transparency and Open Justice Board Key Objectives
Transparency and Open Justice Board
The Lady Chief Justice established the Transparency and Open Justice Board in April 2024. The purpose of the Board is to lead and coordinate the promotion of transparency and open justice across the Courts and Tribunals in England & Wales.
Key Objectives
After establishing a Stakeholder Committee, in which the EWI is participating, the Board is now engaging on its proposed Key Objectives. The Key Objectives represent the high-level outcomes that, once finalised, will guide the Board’s work. They will be used to identify areas where changes can and should be made, as well as to measure the outcomes from any change programme.
After finalising the Key Objectives, the Board will promote them by engaging with all Courts and Tribunals and asking them to carry out an evaluation of the extent to which their current practice and procedure achieve the Key Objectives. Where they do not do so, the relevant Courts and Tribunals will be asked to formulate a change programme that would lead to the Key Objectives being realised. The Board has indicated that it will also support the same approach being taken in the reserved tribunals in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Fundamental components of open justice
The Board has based the Key Objectives on what it believes to be the four fundamental components of open justice:
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Open courts,
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Open reporting,
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Open decisions, and
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Open documents.
The Board notes that where a sufficiently weighty countervailing factor is convincingly established, Courts and Tribunals may be required to derogate from open justice on a case by case basis. The Board also recognises that there are important issues as to the stage of proceedings in which a core document should be publicly available, although this would be reflected in the implementing procedural rules rather than the Key Objectives which are focussed on the principle as to what documents should be available.
The Board’s questions
The Board has invited responses to the proposed Key Objectives by answering three questions:
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Do you agree that these are the correct objectives?
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Do you think there is something that has been missed from the objectives? If yes, what else do you think should be included?
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Do you think there is something that has been included within the objectives that shouldn't be? If yes, what?
The closing date for responses is 28 February 2025.
The EWI will be responding to the engagement on the proposed Key Objectives and would appreciate hearing your view at policy@ewi.org.uk. We will also be in touch directly with members who indicated in our recent survey on ‘Developments in Expert Practice’ that they were happy to discuss this with us further.