Abstract: The Leveson Inquiry has broken new ground for court and political reporting: for the first time a public inquiry held under the Inquiries Act 2005 has been played out live on the internet. Online media provided a chance for ordinary members of the public, non-profit groups and small media organisations to expand and question mainstream media narratives, as they watched, blogged and tweeted proceedings. This paper considers public access to the inquiry, arguing that digital communication has allowed for a newly liberated form of debate and enhanced the public’s entitlement to report what they hear in court, in accordance with a longstanding legal tradition of open justice. Additionally, it has improved UK citizens’ right to freedom of expression – which includes the right to receive as well as impart information and ideas. The public’s increased access to inquiry resources and reporting tools does not necessarily indicate a greater role on the ‘news stage’, but it opens up the possibility for greater public influence on news discourse, and beyond that, political debate.

Citation: Townend, J (2013) ‘Leveson online: A publicly reported inquiry’, Ethical Space, Vol. 10, No. 1.

Reblogged from Inforrm's Blog:

The Leveson Inquiry and Parliament are still on Easter vacation and the new legal term begins on Tuesday 17 April, but there is no shortage of news and commentary to report, following Inforrm's own mini-break from our usual weekly round up.

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Reblogged from Law, Justice and Journalism:

By PA Media Lawyer

The press needs to lift its game if the principle of open justice is to be maintained, a senior QC has warned.

Part of the rationale for open justice was that it meant that judges were themselves under trial while conducting cases, because of media and public scrutiny, and that the public was educated by reports of what was happening in the courts, said media law and human rights specialist Geoffrey Robertson.

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The Open Justice UK group has been refused permission to live tweet a case in Scotland, as Cristiana Theodoli (@_cric) explains here. While journalists have applied to tweet and tweeting was allowed during sentencing in the Tommy Sheridan trial last year, not one journalist has gained authorisation to live tweet a full trial, according to Theodoli (specific permission is required for journalists, unlike England & Wales).

Open Justice UK liaised with the Scottish court ahead of the selected trial but:

“Today, just a day or two before the trial is due to start, we received a short email stating that the Judge has a number of concerns that he feels should be taken up at a senior level and the timescale would not allow for it.”

Meanwhile, at a High Court (Chancery division) hearing in London last Thursday (23 February) the Guardian secured access to court documents relating to News International and Glenn Mulcaire.

In an approved judgment released on Monday (27 February), Mr Justice Vos set out the reasons he has allowed the Guardian (“and any other media organisations that request them”) to access redacted documents, including the “generic Particulars of Claim”, “the Notice to Admit” and the “Response”, mentioned at the phone hacking pre-trial review on 19 January 2012. No parties objected to the Guardian’s request to access a fourth document, the “generic list of issues”.

I’ve flagged up a few key parts below.

Mr Mulcaire’s counsel were concerned

“…that reporting of some parts of the 3 documents will create a substantial risk that the course of justice in the further criminal proceedings that Mr Mulcaire may face will be seriously impeded or prejudiced.” [3]

Vos J found:

“There is a distinct and crucial public interest in scrutinising the decision-making process in this case, and in knowing the facts on which the decisions are being made.” [80]

He said:

“it seems to me to be entirely legitimate for GNM and other media organisations to wish to see unredacted copies of the core documents on the basis of which these proceedings have been and are being conducted.” [81]

…

“First, so far as can be judged today, reporting of the parts of the 3 documents that Mr Mulcaire wishes to see redacted would not, with the one exception already mentioned, give rise to a ‘not insubstantial’ risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in Mr Mulcaire’s future trial (if there is one)”… [82]

He concluded that GNM should be provided with unredacted copies of the three documents, save for several stipulated redactions detailed in par 87 (reasons discussed in the judgment).

The judgment discusses the application of the CPR Part 5.4C(2) and the “Open justice availability of documents to non-parties” (CPR Part 5.4C.10).

You can read the judgment in full, below:

HT: @adamwagner1 for alerting me to the published judgment.

To mark Open Justice Week, Meeja Law has finally joined Facebook (here) where you will find links and resources about digital media law. On Twitter, you can follow @meejalaw and for automated updates on media law, @medialawUK. Or I’m @jtownend.

For this week’s media law listings (courts, Leveson Inquiry, Parliament and events) please see my latest round up on the Inforrm blog.

On Wednesday 29 February, lawyers, academics, journalists and others will be gathering at City University London to discuss the way forward for open justice in 2012. Speakers at the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism’s ‘Justice Wide Open’ seminar include the journalist and activist Heather Brooke, PA Media Lawyer editor Mike Dodd, Hugh Tomlinson QC and Geoffrey Robertson QC.

The programme is embedded below and more details can be found here. It’s fully booked but you can join the waiting list. If you’d like to be kept informed when the publication is released later in the Spring, please drop me an email: judith.townend.1@city.ac.uk.

Happy Open Justice Week!