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Court TV—The Cameras are Switched on Again

Document Cited authorities 1 Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorJames Morton
DOI10.1350/jcla.68.6.451.54148
Published date01 November 2004
Date01 November 2004
Subject MatterOpinion
Standing Document..Contents .. Page1
OPINION
Court TV—The Cameras Are Switched
on Again
James Morton
Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival on 29 August 2004, the
Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, announced that there will
be television coverage of cases in the Court of Appeal—an announce-
ment that had a number of critics and supporters of the proposal leaping
on their horses and riding off in various directions. Some are even saying
that this means that the doors to the Old Bailey are opening. Soon we
shall see the great murder trials of the year televised. Of course we shall
not. Not in my legal lifetime anyway.
The proposals are at present modest. This time coverage will, it seems,
be for educational purposes showing how court television might work
and will have a distribution only amongst the judiciary. So far so good. It
will be a long stride before cameras are installed in the Central Criminal
Court. That, of course, is where there will be a public and where there is
money to be made. No one in his right mind is going to sit and watch the
dissection of a Scott Schedule (if they still have such things) in a building
dispute. Nor for that matter is anyone really going to be interested in an
appeal to the House of Lords. What the public will want is the English
equivalent of the O. J. Simpson trial. The recent British case of the
former deputy head teacher whose conviction for murdering his
13-year-old foster daughter has been quashed by the Court of Appeal
and a retrial ordered is just the stuff television is made of.
There are, of course, many good arguments both for and against
televising criminal trials. The first argument in favour would seem to be
that it allows the public into the courts to see for themselves what is
happening. In recent years there has been a serious decline in informa-
tion about criminal cases. This is for a number of reasons. The first is the
repressive Contempt of Court Act 1981 which allows judges to shut
down reporting of criminal cases for months...

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