CourtWatch

CourtWatch London was a mass court observation project where citizen volunteers observed magistrates’ court hearings and reported what they saw. From July to December 2023, a diverse group of 82 volunteer members of the public (courtwatchers) visited their local London magistrates’ courts armed with a booklet of observation forms and a small amount of training. The project focused on three magistrates’
courts in order to build a community of volunteers around each court. The focus courts (Highbury Corner, Croydon and Thames) were selected
based on the high volume of cases they see, although courtwatchers did visit some other London Magistrates’ Courts in addition.

Between them they observed over 1,100 hearings and reported on the treatment of defendants, the decision-making of magistrates and district judges and their experiences of attending the magistrates’ court as a public observer. The report summarises courtwatchers’ experiences of trying to observe magistrates’ court hearings and the barriers they faced. Their reflections on the justice they saw delivered there and specifically how young adult defendants were treated, are reported on separately.

The courts are in principle open to any who want to observe, for whatever reason. Despite this, volunteers were sometimes severely constrained by a court system that has deprioritised public access. For example, courtwatchers could not actually hear court proceedings from many of the public galleries. The response from court staff towards volunteers bringing this to their attention ranged from assistance to puzzlement to hostility. Our efforts to alert senior London court representatives to the issue seemed to go unnoticed.

Courtwatchers should not have needed to justify their presence, but were asked to do so all too frequently. Staff questioning of public observers may be well-intentioned, but had potential to intimidate an unconfident observer. Inaccurate court lists, poor sightlines and courtroom jargon also made it difficult for courtwatchers to work out what was happening.

All this sends a message to public observers that you can be there, but it is not the court’s problem if you do not understand what is going on.

Accessibility

In just 71% of responses, courtwatchers judged that courts were accessible with step-free access and/or lifts frequently unavailable. The lift was broken in Croydon magistrates’ court for at least a month, preventing access to all the courtrooms on the upper floors for people who could not use stairs. Many public galleries were hard to access.

Court lists

The court lists outside each courtroom were often inaccurate. They were different from the lists that had appeared online and often listed cases that were not in fact heard in that courtroom. Listings changed frequently and the list outside the court was not updated. Updated paper and/or digital lists were circulated to court staff, lawyers and judges but not to those in the public gallery.

Being able to hear proceedings

The biggest problem courtwatchers encountered was in actually hearing the cases. Courtwatchers said that hearings were consistently audible only 23% of the time. This meant courtwatchers struggled to write down crucial details about cases or to understand what the case was about. There were many causes for the audibility problems. The design of the courtroom made it more difficult to hear. In many courts the public gallery is behind a perspex screen or even inside a perspex box. This perspex is a sound barrier. Most courtrooms do have microphones for the core participants and the judge to use, and speakers to relay the sound to the public gallery. But this equipment was frequently turned off or maybe didn’t work at all.

Recommendations

The report concludes with ten recommendations to make our magistrates’ courts more open and accessible for future courtwatchers.

1. Send “secret shoppers” into courts to check how accessible and  welcoming they are.
2. Introduce airport security technology at entry so less personal searching is needed.
3. Conduct an audibility audit in all courtrooms and address any problems revealed.
4. Provide better online and written information about how criminal courts work and about rules for court observation (including where laptops and phones can be used). Put a poster of “who’s who in the courtroom” in every court waiting area.
5. Create better, more detailed open access court listings online and on paper. Trial an electronic board with up to date court listings (like an airport departure board) centrally in the courthouse and outside each courtroom.
6. Train court staff and judges in the principles of open justice and in how to enhance the understanding of public observers.
7. When courts are being designed or renovated, prioritise improving accessibility for public observers, defendants, witnesses and victims.
8. Try to give public observers access to the same written or CCTV evidence which is available to the parties and professionals.
9. Provide a clear route for public observers to feedback about problems they have had accessing and understanding hearings. Give a response to that feedback.
10. Clarify legislation as to what behaviour justifies a public observer being excluded or thrown out of the courtroom.

Conclusion

The foreword to the report is written by the best selling, anonymous author “The Secret Barrister” makes the case for open justice:

“If the reality of the justice system is hidden from the public, and if there is a disconnect between the law and the public it serves, democracy is imperilled. The justice system – from those who design it and fund it, to those who work in it – can only be held to account if the public are able to understand what is being done in its name.”

It is clear that the capital’s Magistrates’ Courts are a long way from open and welcoming to the general public.

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here