@HMCTSgovuk Dismayed to find a hidden hearing today before one of the most senior judges in the Court of Protection. It was in the Daily Cause list for "Teesside" + only only found it by accident, looking for the Daily Hidden Hearing.
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For the month of July, we're bringing you (at least) one hidden hearing a day
Hearings that should be in the COP list on CourtServe but are not. They're hidden away in county court daily cause lists
Another hidden hearing for the month of July - this time in Worcester. One of the hearings in Worcester was in the COP list in CourtServe. The other one wasn't - it was hidden in the Worcester Daily Cause list. Why does this happen + can you fix it please @HMCTSgovuk
Residence,contact,sex for older P in care home - s.21A application
We nearly didn't list it because it's a hidden hearing
2.30 on 29 July
Ask for hearing before DJ Gibson COP 13932675 Worcester (via Teams)
Every six weeks or so, we step back and take a look at how the Court of Protection is doing in relation to open justice and transparency. Here's our assessment for 14th November listings and the last six weeks of observation. @HMCTSgovuk
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We've added another 2 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) since last time.
They still represent a fairly modest collection of requirements for us to be able to support the judicial commitment to #openjustice and transparency in the Court of Protection.
Once a month or so, we look systematically at COP listings in Courtel/CourtServe (the publicly available listing service for the courts) to check how well they support transparency + open justice.
Here's September's analysis
Some good news
Some bad.
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We've kept our ambitions for the listings realistically modest.
We're only asking that COP hearings are in the COP list, make clear the public can observe, tell us whether a hearing is remote/hybrid/in-person, supply contact details + some info on what the hearing is about.
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So here's what the COP list in Courtserve looks like (the pic on the left)
CourtServe is free to access (you just have to register ) + it's the main way we find out about hearings, across all the courts (not just COP).
Towards the end of every month we do a systematic overview of the listings for just one day, to see to what extent they successfully implement the judicial commitment to open justice.
Here's today's assessment.
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We're developing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the Court of Protection's implementation of open justice.
So far, we have 5 rather basic FPIs without which we don't think open justice is possible. (Lawyers aren't disagreeing with us).
Surely these are achievable?
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So this thread reports a systematic review of COP hearings listed in CourtServe for 1st August 2022.
I'll assess what I found against the 5 KPIs we've identified as key to open justice.
I've also been working with court staff to support this + am grateful for their efforts.
Why does the Open Justice Court of Protection Project make its own lists of hearings?
Can't members of the public rely on the lists the Court publishes: lists from the Royal Courts of Justice, First Avenue House and CourtServe?
It's a lot of work - here's why we do it.
One very important reason is that the published lists 'hide' some hearings by listing them in the wrong place.
Other hearings never appear on the court-published lists: they're effectively 'secret'.
'Hidden' and 'secret' hearings are a massive problem for open justice.
This thread focuses CourtServe, which was clearly never developed with the idea that members of the public would use it to identify hearings to observe.
It's supposed to list ALL the Court of Protection hearings in the county courts every day, under
"Court of Protection" tab.
Hayden J said it was not in AH's BI to continue to receive ventilation.
LJ Moylan gave main judgment: "I have, very regrettably, come to the conclusion that the Judge's decision cannot stand+must be set aside"
There were 5 grounds of appeal. Only one was upheld - the concern about the Judge's visit to AH in hospital after the hearing was finished + before he handed down his judgment.
First ground of appeal: that judge gave insufficient attention to AH's earlier capacitous decision on ReSPECT form that she wanted "full escalation" .
But this applies only to "emergency" treatment + current situation is "very far from an emergency".