Criminal Courts: Rules on Access to Documents and Reporting Restrictions

Guidance has been published on the new Criminal Procedure Rules which were laid before Parliament last month and will come into effect on 3 October. This includes guidance on the replacement rules on reporting restrictions and restrictions on public access to criminal cases, which is set out below, while full information is available here.

The new rules are not intended to affect the existing protocols agreed between the NS and the Lord Chancellor on supply of court lists and registers of judgements to thelocal press, without charge, or the CPS/ACPO/ media protocols on release of prosecution material.

Forms and court records

Part 5 has been replaced. The existing rules applied only to magistrates’ courts; they do not list the information about a case which a member of the public or the media can expect to be given, on request; and they do not bring together various related rules about the making of records of court proceedings. The Criminal Procedure Rule Committee decided to consolidate and amend the rules, taking into consideration the various statutory provisions that govern the making of, and access to, such records. Part 16 has also been reviewed and replaced with simplified rules about reporting and access restrictions, and about sound recording and electronic communication. The new Part 5 rules apply to all the criminal courts and codify requirements which until now were only in case law or in guidance.

A replacement section 2 provides rules about the duty to make records, custody of case material, the supply to a party of information or documents from court records or case materials, supply to the public including reporters, of information about a case; and the supply of a written certificate or extract from records.

To further assist court staff, the Lord Chief Justice is preparing to amend the Consolidated Criminal Practice Direction about the application of the rule about access to case materials. An announcement about this will be published on the ‘Criminal Procedure Rules’ ‘What’s New?’ page, here.

Restrictions on reporting and public access

Part 16 (Restrictions on reporting and public access) has been replaced.

Until these rules come in to force, the Criminal Procedure Rules dealt only with very few of the statutory grounds for the making or variation of a reporting restriction, or a restriction on public access to the courtroom. The rules did not deal at all with the statutory restriction on making audio recordings of criminal proceedings, or with the restrictions on using devices such as mobile phones or portable computers to transmit written messages from the courtroom.

The Lord Chief Justice, who is the chairman of the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee, issued in February 2011, ‘A Consultation on the Use of Live, Text-based Forms of Communication from court for the Purposes of Fair and Accurate Reporting’. The Committee considered that paper. Their experience of the operation of the relevant law persuaded the Committee that the existing rules should be comprehensively revised and simplified.

The new rules at Part 16 apply to the exercise of all the reporting and access restrictions available to the criminal courts. They include an explicit presumption in favour of open justice that has up until now been contained in case law and, indirectly, in the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The new rules comprise three parts. First, general rules supported by comprehensive notes; then rules about reporting and access restrictions including a rule about the procedure where the court can order a trial in private; and finally sound recording and electronic communication, including a rule about the forfeiture of unauthorised sound recording.

Note that some miscellaneous rules from the old Part 16 have been moved to the rules that deal with the specific procedures concerned. They are rule 3.5 (about case management directions), rule 19.17 (about bail appeals), rule 19.18 (about bail applications), rule 20.2 (about custody time limit applications) and rule 64.6 (about appeals by case stated).’

This guide was prepared by the Secretariat to the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee (email: CriminalProcedureRuleEnquiries@justice.gsi.gov.uk or contact number: 0203 334 4032 July 2011). For more information contact Santha Rasaiah on 020 673 27461 or santha_rasaiah@newspapersoc.org.uk.