On 29 December 2023, HM Courts and Tribunal Service published a guidance document entitled “How you can attend or access courts or tribunals”. This guide falls far short of delivering on the government’s promise to publish “a citizens’ charter that outlines the public’s rights to attend proceedings and access information”.
The guide is not only inadequate as a charter of public access rights but also inaccurate in a number of respects, as analysed by our partners in the Courts and Tribunals Observers’ Network. We have written a joint letter to the Lady Chief Justice, Lord Chancellor and Chair of the Justice Committee expressing our concerns about the deficiencies in this guidance, and calling for more inclusive stakeholder engagement on open justice issues that includes representation from different professional and civil society groups.
Read our letter here.