Page 172 - Law and the Media

Reporting Restrictions
made to the appropriate court. If the hearing took place in private, an application for leave
must first be made to the hearing judge to obtain a copy of the judgment or order (Practice
Direction 39 supplementing Part 39 of the Civil Procedure Rules paragraph 1.12). If
permission is granted, the prescribed fee for each copy must be paid.

Copies of civil court judgments are also published on the Internet. A unique number is
allocated by the official shorthand writer to each approved civil judgment in the High Court,
which is placed in front of the case citation. Many of these cases appear on the Court Service
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web site and are available to download free of charge. The Court Service web site also
includes the current daily cause list for the High Court in London. This list sets out the
scheduled hearings for that day. To check when a case is likely to be heard, enquiries will
have to be made to the listing officer at the relevant court. The daily cause lists for the district
registries and county courts are not on the Court Service web site, but are available for
inspection at each individual court. The daily cause lists can be a valuable source of
information about hearings, including those held in private, as they include the name of the
parties and judge, the court room and the action number. However, sensitive cases and
applications that do not require notice to the other party are not listed.

On payment of the prescribed fee of £20 per hour it is also possible to inspect the claims list
held by the various divisions of the High Court. As the claims list is only computerized in
the Commercial Division of the High Court, searches usually have to be done manually,
which can be very time consuming and expensive.

The claims list provides the names of the parties, the date the proceedings began and the
names of the solicitors acting on behalf of the parties. By using this list it is possible to obtain
a copy of the claim form filed in the case once it has been served and notification of this has
been given to the court. The particulars of claim may also be obtained, but only if they are
recorded in the body of the claim form. The claim form and the particulars of claim set out
details of the claimant’s case. Until the county courts install facilities for computer searches
of court records, it is not possible to carry out a similar inspection of the records of these
courts.

9.2.3 Proceedings held in private

At common law the court has the residual power to sit in private if it is necessary for justice
to be done or, possibly, in order to prevent the proceedings being disrupted by disorderly
conduct. However, in general the authority to sit in private is governed by the rules of the
court and by statute.

Only a small portion of criminal court work is held in private. For example, the Official Secrets
Act 1920 allows the judge in an official secrets trial the power to clear the public from the court

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The web site can be found at www.courtservice.gov.uk.
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