Justice Needs an Audience That Can Follow the Plot
By The Paragraph
Opening the courtroom door is only the beginning. Public scrutiny depends on making the proceedings intelligible.
A courtroom can be open to everyone and comprehensible to almost no one. A visitor finds a seat, hears references to bundles and previous submissions, and watches a decision take shape around documents they have never seen. Nothing has been concealed in the ordinary sense. Yet the visitor leaves with scarcely more understanding than they brought through the door.
That is a problem for justice, not merely for visitors. Public scrutiny requires some ability to follow the reasoning being scrutinised. Otherwise an open hearing risks resembling a restaurant with a glass kitchen and no menu: activity is visible, but its purpose remains obscure. The appearance of access can conceal a substantial distance between being present and being informed.
In his address on open justice and its missing dimension, Mr Justice Nicklin identifies the importance of written materials in modern civil proceedings. He also makes clear that access is not an automatic entitlement to every document. Confidentiality, proportionality and the purpose of a request matter. The underlying point is nevertheless plain: watching the spoken part of a case may reveal only part of the argument.
The public cannot be expected to become lawyers before taking an interest in the law. Nor should judges be expected to turn every hearing into an introductory lecture. Between those unreasonable demands lies useful work: clearer information about what a hearing concerns, better explanations of the stage a case has reached, and practical routes to material that can properly be made available.
Consider the difference between a decision about whether an argument may proceed and a decision about whether that argument is correct. A headline can make both sound like victory. An observer who understands the distinction is less likely to mistake a procedural ruling for a final judgement. Explanation does not require the court to defend its popularity. It requires the rest of us to know what has happened.
There are costs. Preparing summaries takes time; poorly written summaries can introduce errors; personal information should not become collateral damage in a campaign for transparency. These objections deserve resources and careful limits. They do not justify treating incomprehension as an unavoidable sign that the system is serious. A public institution should be able to explain why particular information remains private without making everything else needlessly obscure.
Journalists have a particular responsibility here. The dramatic exchange is often easier to describe than the issue on which the case turns. Reporting should help readers distinguish an allegation from a finding, an advocate's submission from the court's view, and an interim order from the last word. Those distinctions may spoil a thrilling sentence. They improve an accurate one.
There is also a civic dividend that no court can manufacture through publicity alone. Readers who can trace a decision are better equipped to disagree with it intelligently. They may still think the judge mistaken. But their criticism can address the actual reasoning rather than a rumour about what the law supposedly permits. Public confidence should have room for that kind of informed dissent.
Open justice is strongest when it produces informed judgement rather than ceremonial reassurance. We should be able to see authority at work, understand the question it is answering, and recognise the limits of the answer. An open door remains essential. What happens after we walk through it deserves just as much attention.