Open justice

Open justice is a legal principle that requires that judicial proceedings be conducted in a transparent manner and with the oversight of the people, so as to safeguard the rights of those subject to the power of the court and to allow for the scrutiny of the public in general.

The term has several closely related meanings: it is seen as a fundamental right guaranteeing liberty;[1][2] it describes guidelines for how courts can be more transparent;[3] and it sometimes identifies an ideal situation.

[6] Further, openness can mean more accurate decisions during a trial; for example, the proceedings can spur a witness to come forth, or encourage others to submit new evidence or dispute publicized statements.

[2] Proponents of open justice have argued that public scrutiny permits those interested to "tap into the collective wisdom of what passes for fairness in similar cases".

[6] A British judge commented: This is the reason it is so important not to forget why proceedings are required to be subjected to the full glare of a public hearing.

[5] In some cases, courts have opted to keep trials secret in proceedings against persons charged with terrorism,[11] to protect its intelligence gathering methods and contacts from exposure.

[12] In situations when aspects of trials are kept secret, critics favoring open justice have argued that the secrecy is not needed for national security but is "nothing more than a useful drape to cover the inconvenient or the merely embarrassing.

[13] In the United States, there have been concerns that the principle of open justice has not been applied to cases of immigrants "wrongly ensnared in the post-9/11 law enforcement dragnet" who were denied access to lawyers and relatives and sometimes deported after secret removal proceedings.

[5] A further case in which openness is seen as unnecessary are when legal matters involve uncontentious information unrelated to public issues, such as the financial division of an estate after a death.