The Supreme Court of the UK ruled on Monday that under the principle of open justice, a non-party to a proceeding may have access to written material that was placed before the court if the non-party can explain why they want access to the material and how granting such access will advance the open justice principle.

A non-party generally does not have a right to be granted access unless the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) rules grant a right.

The case dealt specifically with written material before the court in a civil action. The court identified three main issues in the case: whether CPR rule 5.4C(2) “gives the court power to order access to all documents which have been filed, lodged or held at court … or is it more limited?” Second, whether access to court documents is governed solely by CPR or does the court have an inherent power to order access outside of the CPR? And finally, “if there is such a power, how far does it extend and should it be exercised?”

The court worked through an analysis of the case law and concluded that the “court has inherent jurisdiction to allow access to all parties’ skeleton arguments,” and to “documents read or treated as read in open court,” so long as there was “an effective public hearing at which they were deployed.”

In addition, the court held that “where access is sought for a proper journalistic purpose the case for allowing it will be particularly strong.”

The court concluded that non-parties should only seek access to the written materials of a proceeding if they can show a good reason why access will advance the open justice principle, that there are no countervailing principles, and that granting access will not be impracticable or disproportionate.