Evidence submitted by Joshua Rozenberg,
Legal Editor, The Daily Telegraph
As a legal journalist of 20 years' standing,
I would be happy to add my name to those supporting greater openness
for family proceedings. In general, I would argue that the courts
should be open to press and public, subject only to restrictions
on identifying children involved in proceedings. It is patently
in the public interest that justice should be done patently and
in public.
In recent "right-to-life" cases, parties
themselves have sometimes sought publicity. Although the interests
of any affected child must be paramount, it would often be artificial
to maintain secrecy if those most affected by a claim do not seek
it.
On the whole, I think the press respect requests
from the judiciary to preserve the anonymity of parties in family
proceedings. These requests could easily be made mandatory. That
might deter members of the public from putting information on
the internet or foreign journalists from publishing information
out of the jurisdiction.
If the courts are worried about the difficulty
of enforcing reporting restrictions against members of the public,
then judges should consider allowing only the press access to
hearings or rulings. I believe this is still the position in youth
courts and I don't think there have been problems identifying
bona fide journalists.
Occasionally, judges are more than willing for
the press to publicise rulings made after private hearings. In
the past, these tended to involve abducted children. Now, they
are more likely to affect points of principle. In all such cases,
it is essential to have a mechanism in place to ensure that all
legal correspondents (and, ideally, all news media) have access
to the judgment. The concordat with the Government envisages the
long-overdue creation of a judges' press officer. In the meantime,
the DCA press office will offer its services.
At the moment, judges sometimes leave it to
their clerks to alert the press. Clerks have no training in how
to do this and I know of one incident this year where the judge's
clerk did not alert all those who would have wanted to know about
a particularly newsworthy ruling. As a result, the judgment did
not receive the coverage it deserved, at least initially.
In my view, the Family Division should be brought
in line with other divisions of the High Court. The presumption
should be that courts sit in public and their proceedings may
be reported unless there is a ruling to the contrary, either in
individual cases or in a class of cases. If information is restricted,
misinformation will bubble up to fill the vacuum.
I would be happy to answer any specific questions
the committee may have.
Joshua Rozenberg
Legal Editor
The Daily Telegraph
8 November 2004
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