Remote Observation and Recording (Courts and Tribunals) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lilian Greenwood and Sarah Dines

Tuesday 19th July 2022 General Committees

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I do not think that the Minister has properly addressed the questions asked by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). If there is a trial of significant public interest, what is to prevent large numbers of the public, who would be entitled to be in the public gallery, asking for observer status? How can she be certain that there are sufficient resources to undertake the due diligence that my right hon. Friend mentioned?

[Miss Dines]

It is little different from what would happen under the old system, where people present themselves at court and try to get in the public gallery. There might be a limit of 20, 30 or 50 people, depending on the size of the court. There needs to be a prior application so that the court system would not be surprised by it, and there would be sufficient time. Funds are being set aside to implement it. If there is an unusual administrative burden, it is open to the court, as it always has been, to refuse an application or physical entry. It is exactly the same principle, and there will be time for that to be considered. I am grateful for the intervention, but I will move on.

Importantly, the regulations ensure that the powers to admit remote observers may be used in jurisdictions that were previously not within the scope of the Coronavirus Act, such as the Court of Protection, coroner’s proceedings, and all tribunals outside the unified system, such as employment tribunals. Making the legislation permanent and expanding it in two important ways will strengthen open justice and the transparency and accessibility of our justice system. It supports the recommendations of the Cairncross review on the future of journalism, and report by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in November 2020 on the same topic, by offering modern digital solutions to facilitate journalists’ access to court. It will improve court access for members of the public who are perhaps less physically able to attend court hearings and buildings to observe the proceedings, as well as those who might feel intimidated or uncomfortable in a physical public gallery.

Public galleries will continue to be available in our courtrooms, as they are now. The enabling provisions, new sections 85A and 85B of the Courts Act 2003, inserted by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, contain the necessary safeguards to ensure that remote observers and participants in a hearing cannot make an unauthorised recording or transmission of the proceedings. Transgressors would be subject on conviction to a £1,000 fine or, if found in contempt of court, they would face up to two years in prison. Those safeguards replicate in a digital sense existing prohibitions that have long applied to traditional courtrooms.

It is important to note that the provisions retain at their heart the principle of judicial discretion. It will be for judges, magistrates, coroners and tribunal panel members to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to provide transmissions of proceedings to members of the public.