Rejected petition Halt the deletion of Court records and preserve open justice
We call on the Government to immediately halt the deletion of court records held by Courtsdesk and to preserve this archive in full pending independent review.
It was created as part of a government-approved pilot to improve transparency and media access.
More details
The Ministry of Justice has ordered the deletion of this archive on data protection grounds, yet no specific breach has been publicly identified.
Deleting the entire archive is an irreversible and disproportionate response when less extreme options, such as redaction or restricted access, are available.
Destroying these records would permanently erase evidence of how the justice system has operated, prevent scrutiny of past decisions, and undermine public confidence in the courts.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
We can't publish petitions when the request is something that's already happening or something that has been announced since you started your petition.
We think your petition is covered by Government or Parliament action already. If you'd like something else, you could start a new petition clearly explaining what it is.
The Government appears to have gone back on its original plans and so for now the Courtsdesk archive is being retained:
The Government has u-turned on this - although not explicitly stated in the most recent Written Answer, it has no plans to delete the Courtsdesk archive.
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2026-02-10/112281
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c6259fa5-5bb1-464d-8086-c0fed0797b66
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.