My Lords, I very much welcome the order. I rise to speak because I have some experience of the operation of a very similar system, which I introduced 20 years ago in Scotland. The position there is that there is no statutory restriction on the filming or audio recording anything that happens in any court. The matter is controlled entirely by the judiciary. When I became Lord President, it seemed to me—very much for the reasons given by the Minister in his opening remarks—that the public would benefit from seeing a little of what happened in the courts, and would thereby understand a bit more about how the process of justice was being administered. The opening remarks of the Minister were precisely to the point, and I very much agree with the reasons he gave for making this order.
On the other hand, I set as my criterion in deciding what to do the other point that the Minister made, which was that the administration of justice and the
respect that is due to the court itself were absolutely fundamental to any relaxation that might be made on any blanket restriction on the use of cameras or audio recording. The system which I set up was rather a modest one, but is almost exactly that which the Minister has put before this Committee. It depended entirely upon the consent of the court to the use of this equipment. Since we were allowing trials to be considered for audio and television purposes, it would require the consent of a lot of other people as well.
This is a very modest step, because it looks only to the Court of Appeal process. That is a good deal easier than the system at which I was looking. Nevertheless, I have one or two remarks. It is of course very different from the system from which I have just come in the UK Supreme Court, where there is a live feed of the hearings on Sky, and our judgments, when we give them, are reported instantly on YouTube. I understand from comments that have been made to me that both these systems are widely used by the universities, which like to keep track of what arguments have been presented to the court and what judgments have been given.
I do not think that, in not going that far, the Minister is making a mistake. When one looks to the Court of Appeal, as I was doing in Edinburgh, one has to be extremely cautious and move step by step. This step is carefully judged and very appropriate. However, I would like to suggest one or two points. First, the Minister might care to look for the future at the practice direction which I gave in 1992, which set out one or two other points to which people were expected to adhere. I do not have a copy with me today, but it is available in the usual way and provides some guidance to the way the system is operated in Scotland.
Secondly, to give noble Lords a little idea of how the system is actually used, one of the points which came over clearly to us was that the broadcasting corporations want quick feed for news broadcasts but do not have available space for a good deal of dispute and discussion in court unless, as Sky does, they provide it live on a feed which is simply available all the time. I cannot see the live system working here because, quite rightly, there is a check on what is being put out, so that the court must give its permission. The Minister said it could be almost live but cannot be actually live; I fully understand that. That being so, the use that could be made of argument would be rather limited.
However, I see real value in the broadcasting of, at least excerpts from, what judges are saying when dealing with an appeal against sentence. I confess that once or twice in the past two or three years I have wished that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who was sitting as Lord Chief Justice, had been seen on television. I knew that his remarks were extremely well judged, but I would have thought that they would have carried much more weight if people had seen him actually saying them. That will be the great value of this in the future, almost certainly the most valuable from the court’s perspective and also from the point of view of the broadcasters.
Two things may be missing here. First, in Scotland, we find that the television companies now mostly use the system for ceremonies that take place in court. When a new judge is introduced, which happens fairly frequently these days, there is a fairly colourful ceremony which takes place in court. When the First Minister for Scotland is sworn in, that takes place in court as well. These things do not happen, of course, in the Court of Appeal. On the other hand, things do happen in the Lord Chief Justice’s court which might be of interest to the public, and they are not on the list of things which can be broadcast. It may be that experience will allow for a little bit of relaxation to allow that kind of thing to take place; for instance, when a new Lord Chief Justice is sworn in.
The other thing is documentaries. I think—but I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm—that the recordings referred to here would be available for broadcasters for use in documentaries. That was what happened in our experience in Scotland. Six programmes were made to show trials as they happened and, in one or two cases, the appeals that followed after trial. There has been another one very recently in Scotland, the case of Nat Fraser, where the same technique is being used. It has been broadcast, using recorded material from the proceedings in court. I can see some interest in the way this is done, although of course it will lack the draw for the broadcaster of having the evidence, but at least some of the argument could be helpful. It would be interesting to know whether documentaries would be covered.
Those are the three points for further reference: first, checking how it is done in Scotland for some guidance as to how the system actually works in practice; secondly, ceremonies; and thirdly, documentaries. Otherwise, I very much welcome this measure and I am sure that in due course we will find it beneficial.
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