Thread by @kirkkorner

Thousands of court hearings per year are set to be moved behind-closed-doors, under govt plans before Parliament at the moment.

The Judicial Review & Courts Bill would reduce open hearings to private messages between lawyers and the court, in a hefty assault on #OpenJustice

The plan is to allow magistrates court hearings involving the allocation of 'either way' offences to be dealt with administratively.

In 2019, 37,539 defendants were sent for or elected jury trial. Under the proposals, their first appearances in court could have been axed.

The new plans are summarised on the second page, here: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

I just sat in one of those hearings that could be affected.

In terms of ruthless efficiency, it could have been replaced by a series of emails and an online form.

But taking a broader view, that would have been very damaging to the principle of transparency.

The defendant appeared in the dock and acknowledged their date of birth and address.

It's hard to overstate how important this moment is to news reporters, who need to be sure they've got the right person before filing a story.

It will be music to the ears of publicity-shy defendants that they won't have to come to court for a first appearance in the magistrates court.

They can't be photographed outside court, & as I'll explain, there's a fighting chance their case will slip through entirely unnoticed.

Next up, the prosecutor outlined to the court in brief terms what the allegation is.

Another key moment, helping the reporter to understand what the case is about and assess whether it's a story worth following.

The defendant elected jury trial, and indicted a not guilty plea.
This helps me to track the case and predict how it will pan out.

Witness requirements were checked, bail conditions confirmed, the case was sent to crown court for a plea hearing next month.

For each magistrates hearing, the media receives in advance the defendant's name, DOB, address & the charges they face

The charge isn't a full explanation of the allegation - this is what the prosecutor usually offers at the hearing - but it helps us to choose hearings to attend

Things change when a case lands in the Crown Court.

Public lists contain only a defendant's name - no hint of the allegations they face.
Charges are on indictment, usually obtained by reporters attending each hearing.

Essentially, it becomes harder to spot the good cases.

At the first crown court hearing, it's now depressingly common for timetables to be set and pleas entered, without anyone saying out-loud what the allegation is.

'The case summary has been uploaded to the digital case system', says the prosecutor.

And so the case goes off into the stack, perhaps not to be heard from again until the trial comes round in a couple of years time.

But for the first appearance in the magistrates court, when someone stood up and said what this was all about, it could remain rather mysterious.

In the case of the jeweller who ran over Andrew Gilligan, the first app in the magistrates court was two-and-a-half years ago.

Without the mags hearing, I doubt I'd have been able to track the case through its aborted trials & attended the sentencing.

standard.co.uk/news/uk/hatton…

As it presently stands, Parliament is due to debate the Judicial Review and Courts Bill in the absence of any proposals to safeguard open justice.

It's not clear what else might be reduced to administrative decision-making, like the setting of reporting restrictions.

As well as getting hold of good stories to report on, journalists also perform a vital scrutiny role in the courts. This is far harder to carry out when open hearings are being replaced by behind-closed-doors online procedures.

Perhaps the MoJ has big plans to ensure everything is transparent?

Prosecution summaries, defence submissions, & copies of judicial decisions routinely disclosed to the media

But nothing on the table at the moment, & there's doubt these cases will even be included on mags lists

The Single Justice Procedure looms large over all of this: Voted through in 2014/15 by Parliament with vague and substandard promises of openness that the overburdened courts administration simply couldn't deliver on.

Perhaps this time MPs could look objectively at the proposals and say this kind of reform shouldn't go through unless there are sufficient, workable, and legally guaranteed open justice provisions.

Allowing the justice system to slip further into darkness would be inexcusable.