Case Law Matters, and So Should Access: A Call for Greater Public Availability of Case Law

This article exposes a structural incoherence in the treatment of national jurisprudence by the European supranational courts. Although they treat domestic judicial decisions as “law” in a substantive sense and as an important part of national legal systems, their rules on the public availability of case law remain significantly underdeveloped. Drawing on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union, and using the Czech Republic as a national case study, this article illustrates how the jurisprudence of apex courts complements legislation and, at times, fills or overrides statutory gaps. It then distinguishes between the individual dimension of the publication of judgments (transparency and control) and the general dimension (precedential authority and legal certainty), and argues that both presuppose free, durable online access to case law, not only of apex courts but also of lower courts. However, current legal standards centred on public pronouncement and occasional reporting articulated by these supranational courts are no longer sufficient in the digital age. Insufficient publication and access, which remain common in practice, harm (mainly) individuals, as unstructured mass publication produces information overload and “unknown unknowns.” This article ultimately argues for a positive obligation to publish and organise judgments, advocating for state-maintained, free online repositories with authoritative, court-authored metadata. It also demonstrates how privacy concerns can be managed through targeted redaction rather than limits on access.