Editorial | Court live streaming welcome

This newspaper welcomes Chief Justice Bryan Sykes’ announcement last week of the judiciary’s intention to live stream court cases.

We, however, look forward to further and better particulars of how the process will work, especially how decisions will be made on what hearings to broadcast. Hopefully, live streaming will be the default from which judges depart in the most compelling circumstances.

The question of whether cameras should be allowed in courtrooms has been on Jamaica’s agenda for decades, to which the judiciary has edged only slowly, and seemingly, grudgingly.

Indeed, a handful of cases, both at first instance level and in the Court of Appeal, have in the past been live streamed via the Internet. In 2021, for instance, Justice Sykes, whom we believe to be the primary architect of the process, allowed opening statements of the Klansman gang trial to be live streamed, as he did when he delivered his summation of verdicts in that case in 2023.

Last year, the Supreme Court’s ruling on the political Opposition’s challenge of the constitutional amendment allowing the extension of the term of office of the director of public prosecutions (DPP) was also live streamed. So, too, was last month’s near full-bench hearing by the Court of Appeal of the important Cecil Moore case involving the application of mandatory minimum sentences and their compliance with the Constitution.

Mostly, though, broadcasts from the courtrooms have been voice-only, rather than with video.

REINFORCING RIGHT OF ACCESS

Last week, at the swearing-in of two new members of the judiciary, Chief Justice Sykes suggested that Internet broadcasts from the high courts would become something of a norm.

He said, “Going forward, we will be live-streaming appropriate cases. We want to do that both in the trial courts and in the appellate courts.

“It’s easier to do in the appellate courts. But we also want to extend that to the first instance courts as a part of public education generally and actually letting people see what happens in a court, and also reinforcing the right of access to the courts.”

The Gleaner fully agrees with this move. It is one way of enhancing the transparency of the courts and of the judicial system, and giving expression to the concept of open justice.

Citizens should have confidence in the independence and integrity of judges not because they are told of, and accept, the virtue of the system or because it is cloistered in seemingly inaccessible mystery. Rather, they should, or should be able to, see it at work.

In other words, justice must be transparent, open to all citizens. Which leveraging available technology helps to achieve.

This, of course, raises the question of what cases will be deemed “appropriate” for live streaming, and who makes those decisions.

Judges have tremendous authority over their courtrooms. So while the constitution starts with the premise of open, public courts, it provides for exceptions to that principle “ where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice” or undermine national defence, public order, public safety or public morality. How judges exercise these powers could become an issue.

REAL-TIME, RELIABLE INFORMATION

Indeed, in the past, in this and other jurisdictions, some judges have been reluctant to entertain cameras in their spaces. They perceive it as an overly intrusive technology that is likely to inspire performative behaviour in court, rather than engagement of the law and a search for truth.

While we have some sympathy for those concerns and appreciate that judges’ powers to determine when publicity would prejudice the interest of justice, there must be clear criteria for determining what cases are not appropriate for live streaming. That test should be public.

Put another way, the default must be to live stream, subject only to the availability of the technology in courtrooms.

This approach will help to improve not only the access to, but the accuracy of, information about the courts and their workings, thus limiting the development of false narratives in these times of largely accountable and non-invigilated social media ‘reporters’.

Or, as Chief Justice Sykes put it last year: “While we might not be able to prevent persons from making mischief, what it will do is to provide real-time, reliable information to a substantial body of persons who can fill the space with accurate narratives, based on information that they have received from an authoritative source.”

To close the circle on this initiative and further advance transparency, the legislation should be amended to make open Gun Court cases, which, by default, are secret, although judges, in certain circumstances, are allowed space for openness.

Chief Justice Sykes should lobby for this change.