[2025] UKUT 029 (AAC)

Open justice means that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. In Cape Intermediate Holdings Limited v Dring [2019] UKSC 38, [2020] AC 629 the Supreme Court explained the purpose of the principle as follows:

“42.

The principal purposes of the open justice principle are two-fold and there may well be others. The first is to enable public scrutiny of the ways in which courts decide cases – to hold the judges to account the decisions they make and to enable the public to have confidence that they are doing their job properly. …

43.

…the second goes beyond the policing of individual courts and judges. It is to enable the public to understand how the justice system works and why decisions are taken. For this they have to be in a position to understand the issues and the evidence adduced in support of the parties’ cases”.

Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides that: “Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interests of…” and then a series of reasons are listed, including: “the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the Court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice”.