Transparency

Both the Danish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights ensure open justice.

Open justice serves two specific purposes. First, it ensures that the relevant parties are not subject to secretive justice, involving the risk that irrelevant factors influences the adjudication. Second, the requirement for open justice improves public confidence in the judicial system as the public observes how cases are adjudicated.

Open justice encompasses public access to legal proceedings and media access to courtroom coverage. However, open justice sometimes must yield to consideration for the parties or the investigation. In such situations, the court may decide to hear the case behind closed doors or impose reporting restrictions on certain details from the proceedings or the identity of the defendant.

The public primarily learns about court proceedings through the media, and media interest in court procedures is very important. Knife killing, gang rape, and violence are given newspaper coverage and broadcasting time as well. Press coverage of legal proceedings is crucial for the public conception of due process. Therefore, good interaction between the media and the judiciary is essential. Under all circumstances, Denmark is a society founded on the rule of law, which cannot function adequately unless information about court procedures is a communicative task to be undertaken by the media in concert with the judiciary.

For that reason, the Courts of Denmark propose in their communication policy that the judiciary should, while observing professional secrecy and independence, assist reporters by giving them relevant information. This may help ensure that the public is informed competently and adequately about proceedings and decisions in specific cases.

The communication policy includes some advice about interaction with the press. It is important to us that the public and the press, as far as possible, are treated fairly and justly everywhere in Denmark.

In other areas, the Courts of Denmark have taken steps to strengthen the media relations. A communication network has been established with a contact person in each court aiming to assists journalists, and some courts have press judges who can explain and comment on court rulings.

In 2022, the Courts of Denmark opened the Judgment Database, in which you can search for and find judgments issued by the courts. The database is open to everyone and was a long-awaited tool from political side and stakeholders with an interest in judgments.

In the Judgment Database, you will find judgements issued by the Courts of Denmark, covering both civil and criminal cases. The judgements consist of recent judgements issued by the courts from 2020 onwards. Additionally, a number of older judgements, which originate from access to public records requests at the courts, have been published as well.

The Judgment Database contains a selection of judgements primarily issued by the higher courts.

The judgements are published in full judgment strings, meaning that appealed judgements from the Supreme Court or the High Courts are published together with the underlying judgements from the District and High Courts.

An important element of judicial transparency is the public accessibility to the courts. E-justice, i.e. the use of modern technologies in court proceedings, has a key role to play in improving access to justice.

Digital communication with the courts has, however, for many years been restricted by various legislative obstacles, e.g. the sine qua nons of written proceedings and signatures on documents. The Danish Administration of Justice Act has been amended to prepare the way for the use of digital communication in general, and email communication in particular, in court proceedings.