Cloistered justice: The opposing trends of barricade and respective secrecy

Abstract Two recent reports illustrate contrasting trends in open justice exceptions conceptualised as respective and barricade secrecy. Respective secrecy protects the parties involved and their constitutive social ties and, as evaluation report into the Family Court Transparency Pilot indicates, has been shrinking. In contrast, barricade secrecy conceals actions and determinations of the state, and the greatly delayed government response to the Ouseley Review of Closed Material Procedures indicates its use will continue to spread. Taking seriously the demand that justice must be seen to be done, the article applies a secrecy studies lens to the dynamics of respective and barricade secrecy and argues that the friction between them conveys the vernaculars of disorder that operate in place of consistency, stability and certainty expected in democratic society.