Broadcasting of Court Proceedings

Debate between John Whittingdale and Andrew Smith

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to hold a short debate on the subject of the broadcasting of court proceedings. I should perhaps make it clear at the start that I am not a lawyer. I have appeared in court, but only in the jury box—never as counsel and not yet in the dock.

However, during the past few months, both in my capacity as Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport and as Chair of the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, I have had dealings with many lawyers. In respect of the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, I read the report of the committee on super-injunctions recently prepared by the Master of the Rolls. I want to quote the opening section, in which the Master of the Rolls states:

“It has been a fundamental principle of the common law since its origins that justice is conducted, and judgments are given, in public.”

He then goes on to quote the Lord Chief Justice, who said only last year:

“Justice must be done between the parties. The public must be able to enter any court to see that justice is being done in that court, by a tribunal conscientiously doing its best to do justice according to law…In reality very few citizens can scrutinise the judicial process: that scrutiny is performed by the media, whether newspapers or television, acting on behalf of the body of citizens. Without the commitment of an independent media the operation of the principle of open justice would be irremediably diminished.”

I could almost end there, but I want to go on to say a bit about the background to the matter.

The ban on television cameras stems from a section of the Criminal Justice Act 1925, which I understand was passed to prevent the distraction caused by exploding flash bulbs of cameras in court. Of course, at that time television had not even been invented. Since then, there has been a long debate about whether our courts should be opened up to allow greater access to the media.

The debate about television cameras has been going on for more than 20 years. In 1989, Jonathan Caplan on behalf of the Bar Council produced a report that came out broadly in favour of allowing television, subject to certain very strict controls. Nothing then happened until 2004 when, after discussions between the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the broadcasters, it was agreed that a pilot scheme would be allowed to operate for a few weeks in the Lord Chief Justice’s court and then in the Master of the Rolls’s court.

That pilot scheme was never broadcast, but it demonstrated that the televising of court proceedings could be done without causing great distraction or disruption, or creating the dangers that people had spoken about. The broadcasting of proceedings could be done very discreetly and, most importantly, it could be completely controlled by the judge. During the pilot scheme, on a couple of occasions the judge pressed the button he had to shut off broadcasting. A large number of people have seen the results of that pilot and, as far as I am aware, it is generally regarded as a success. The pilot scheme did not lead to any great concerns being expressed and most people felt that it was a step forward both in allowing people to see the workings of the court and increasing understanding of the judicial procedure.

Although the pilot scheme was generally deemed to have been successful, nothing then happened. However, there have been one or two developments outside the English and Welsh court system. For instance, the Scottish courts have allowed very controlled broadcasting, but because anybody can object, it has not been used very much. When the Supreme Court was established, it allowed some televising of its judgments. Despite the fact that those are largely fairly detailed legalistic debates, I understand that the streamed feed from the Supreme Court made available by Sky has had a lot of viewers. Indeed, there have been around 50,000 this year, with 14,000 recently watching the ruling on the Assange case.

There have been other judicial procedures during which television cameras have been allowed, such as the Chilcot inquiry, the Hutton inquiry and, of course, most recently the inquiry carried out by Lord Justice Leveson. Given the fact that I am involved in considering similar material, I have been watching the proceedings of Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry with great attention. Those proceedings have been carried in considerable part on both the Sky News channel and the BBC News channel. There are also plenty of examples in other countries. In fact, Britain is one of very few countries left that does not allow any televising of its judicial proceedings. Most comparable countries in the developed world allow broadcasting; indeed, even China and Russia allow broadcasting of their court proceedings.

So if the arguments are so strong, why has it not happened? There have been objections. A long-standing objection is that broadcasting proceedings might lead to grandstanding and that people will play to the cameras and want to become celebrities in their own right. I was not a Member when television cameras were introduced in the House of Commons, but I was active in politics and I remember precisely the same arguments being made then about what would happen with MPs’ behaviour and that they would similarly perform to the cameras. In large part, that has not occurred. Indeed, I think most people regard the broadcasting of Parliament as having been a great success.

There have also been objections that somehow the media might distort coverage, presenting a slanted view, and that there will be a loss of objectivity. Of course, any televising of court proceedings would be subject to the same restrictions on court reporting that exist at the moment for other forms of media—for example, not revealing the identity of jurors or of potential rape victims. Those rules would apply equally to television cameras as they do to newspapers. One has to say that in general—not just in terms of the coverage of judicial proceedings—television has a better record than newspapers for impartiality and objectivity because it is governed by strict rules requiring it to be impartial and objective.

I shall illustrate a recent case where the televising of proceedings certainly had a beneficial effect for me. I had read a great many fairly lurid accounts, particularly in the tabloids, of the Amanda Knox case and the murder in Italy. Many people felt such reports were not entirely objective and, indeed, that they suggested very strongly that Amanda Knox was guilty. I happened to be away at the time of the appeal hearing in the Italian courts, which was carried in large part on Sky News, and I watched much of the proceedings, including the broadcast of Amanda Knox appearing in the witness box. At the end of the proceedings, I had considerably more doubt about the case. Therefore, when the court delivered its verdict that she should be released and was not guilty, it came as less of a surprise than it would have done to those people who had only read about the case in the tabloid press. That is an area where broadcasting can increase understanding and serve justice well.

It is easy to think of cases that will obviously be attractive to the broadcasters. Such cases will not only be sensational, lurid murder trials, although I have no doubt that some of those will be broadcast. I shall give three recent examples where there would have been real merit in having broadcast coverage. The first—this is a painful subject for all of us in this place—is that of the recent trials of MPs for abuse of their expenses. There was a huge public interest in people who were paid from the public purse, and it was very important that it was shown that nobody should be above the law. If those trials had been broadcast, they would have received a lot of interest and coverage.

Secondly, there were the riots, and the cases involving those who were convicted of rioting last summer. Again, there was a very big public interest. There was, perhaps, a lack of understanding about some of the sentencing policy. If people had had the opportunity to see the judge deliver a sentence and explain why he had reached that decision, that would also have increased understanding.

Thirdly and most recently, there was the Stephen Lawrence case. The fact that justice was finally done received huge coverage in the newspapers. It would have been even more powerful if the case had been broadcast and people had had the opportunity to see justice finally being done.

I was therefore extremely pleased to hear the announcement by the Lord Chancellor last September that the Government intend to move towards allowing the televising of court proceedings. Of course, there should be a step-by-step approach.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I agree with the thrust of his argument. It is important that justice is not only done, but, as he says, seen to be done.

On the step-by-step approach, does he agree with the points made by the Master of the Rolls in his speech to the Judicial Studies Board on 16 March 2011? He asked,

“from a public interest perspective might there not be an argument now for its hearings”—

that is, the Supreme Court—

“and some hearings of the Court of Appeal, being televised on some equivalent of the Parliament Channel, or via the BBC iPlayer.”

Broadcasting court proceedings could start there. We could then see how that goes, and extend it later.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I agree entirely with the right hon. Gentleman. The pilot scheme started in the Court of Appeal. In their review of the pilot scheme, the broadcasters said that they would have liked it to have gone further, and that it should have been allowed to cover Crown court proceedings, and perhaps to have shown witnesses as well as the counsel and judge. That needs to be done in a step-by-step way. There are genuine concerns and to allay them, we need to proceed gradually. I hope that in due course we will have much greater access, but let us start, as the right hon. Gentleman and the Master of the Rolls say, with the Court of Appeal. That would be a major step forward and is, I think, what the Government hope to do.

The obstacle is the requirement for primary legislation. There is no doubt that it will take time for the rules to be worked out, and secondary legislation will probably be needed to set out in detail how this will work. However, none of that can begin to happen until there is primary legislation. The broadcasters—in a letter that was sent this week by the head of BBC news, the chief executive of ITN and the head of Sky news: a joint letter from all three of the main news broadcasters in this country—have stated that they are very keen for the process to get under way, but that primary legislation would be required in the Queen’s Speech. My request and plea to the Minister this morning is not just to confirm the Government’s intention to move gradually and carefully down this road, but to do so at the first opportunity—the Queen’s Speech.

In conclusion, this is a reform whose time has not just come, but is long overdue. I hope the Minister agrees and is able to provide us with more details this morning.