UK Supreme Court – cearta.ie

Televising the Supreme Court

1 October, 200910 July, 2013

| Court dress, judges, Law, Open Justice, UK Supreme Court

No, not the Irish Supreme Court, but the new UK Supreme Court. There’s quite a lot of coverage in the UK media and blawgopshere today about the new Court at the apex of UK’s judicial system, which opens for business today, on time and on budget, in a refurbished former criminal court, after a difficult gestation. David Pannick argues in the Times today that, however unhappy its origins, the opening of a new Supreme Court is an important commitment to the rule of law. Much of the media interest turns on the fact that the Court will be televised. For example, one of the pieces in the Times is headlined that TV coverage means justice really will be seen to be done:

The reform has taken a number of steps over 20 years: a Bar Council report chaired by Jonathan Caplan, QC, in 1989, the filming of parts of the Shipman inquiry and the Hutton inquiry and the 2004 pilot project in the Court of Appeal all moved the issue of cameras in court forward. … The footage will be filmed and recorded by the court and made available by a feed to broadcasters, … [and] can be used only for news, current affairs and educational and legal training programmes.

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Seeing justice done?

16 July, 20091 October, 2009

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| Cinema, television and theatre, Irish Law, judges, Media and Communications, UK Supreme Court

As the slow march towards a new Supreme Court for the UK nears its destination, the Times has a piece about its newly refurbished premises:

The United Kingdom’s new Supreme Court will open its doors for business on October 1, with the first inbuilt facilities in Britain for broadcasting in court. … Broadcasting and internet arrangements are still to be devised but the three courts (two for the Supreme Court, one for the judicial committee of the Privy Council) can be filmed, a first in England and Wales.

As the BBC story on the completion of the refurbishment emphasises, the “decision to televise events from inside the court’s three chambers is a first for England and Wales”. And the Guardian quotes Jenny Rowe, the Court’s Chief Executive as saying that they are “in advanced discussions with broadcasters about the material they will want to use … If broadcasters wish to show it we will make it available”.

I think that it is a splendid idea. As the Canadian blawgs Slaw and the Court point out, since February 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada has provided live streaming of oral arguments and judges’ questions in authorized cases. The whole experiment is working well, and doing the same in the UK is an excellent development.…

Bentham and judicial retirement

26 March, 20091 October, 2009

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| judges, Law, UK Supreme Court

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) (left) was a utilitarian philosopher, whose radical ideas on education inspired those who founded University College London. Nowadays, the Bentham Association (formerly the Bentham Club) is the Alumni Association for UCL’s lawyers, and it annually hosts a Presidential Address from an invited senior lawyer. This year’s address was given by Lord Pannick QC on the topic:

“Better that a horse should have a voice in that House [of Lords], than that a judge should” (Jeremy Bentham).

Replacing the Law Lords by a Supreme Court

It broadly concerned the implications of the removal of the final court of appeal from parliament, and can be heard online here. It covers a wide range of very interesting material, and is very well worth listening to. There’s no text yet online, but one aspect of it appears in Pannick’s column in today’s Times, taking the field on an issue I’ve looked at already on this blog (here and here); some extracts:

Seventy is far too early for a supreme court judge to retire . . .

… The argument for a retirement age of 75 for all supreme court justices is very simple. Those appointed are the cream of the judiciary.

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