Media have right to court exhibits, appeal judges rule

The Ontario Court of Appeal has knocked down a long-standing barrier to full public access to the courts, ruling the CBC could see and make copies of exhibits in the Ashley Smith case, including a videotape of the teen’s dying moments in a Kitchener prison cell. Court exhibits have been guarded like state secrets in Ontario’s justice system and reporters are routinely denied access to documents, videotapes and other material that could assist in explaining a case — everything from a summary of the facts surrounding a guilty plea to, in one case, something as innocuous as a photo of a dog. When the CBC applied for access to exhibits filed at the preliminary hearing of four prison guards charged in Smith’s 2007 death, the Correctional Service of Canada argued an open justice system only entitles the public and media to attend court and report on what is said, not access to exhibits filed in a case. Writing for a 3-0 appeal panel Monday, Justice Robert Sharpe squarely rejected that argument, saying the open court principle and the media’s right to access judicial proceedings “must extend to anything that has been made part of the record.”Access to exhibits can now be denied only if there is convincing evidence it would cause a serious risk to the administration of justice and the benefits of denying access outweigh interests such as freedom of expression.