LEADING Merseyside lawyers welcomed a move to allow Twitter to be used in courts under certain circumstances.
The country’s top judge, Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, said users will need the judge’s permission first and that could be refused in criminal trials.
Decisions over the use of the micro- blogging website would be made on a case-by-case basis, depending on the risk of interference to the “proper administration of justice”.
This risk would be at its highest in criminal trials, where witnesses outside the courtroom could find out what is being said inside before being called to give evidence, he warned.
Lord Judge added the use of Twitter in courts could also be limited to journalists, rather than any member of the public, to stop large numbers of mobile phones interfering with the court’s sound recording equipment and to prevent other distractions.
Commercial and criminal lawyer David Kirwan, senior partner at Liverpool law firm Kirwans, said: “It is a recognition that time has moved on and society is changing.
“The courts have caught up quickly with this fact and I am cautiously in approval of it.”
Steve Cornforth, deputy managing partner of Liverpool law firm EAD Solicitors, added: “Any development that results in open justice is to be welcomed. Tweeting is how the world communicates in the 21st century. It is encouraging that court reporting is now allowed to catch up.”
Lord Judge’s interim guidance on the use of the micro-blogging site and electronic devices in courts comes ahead of a consultation on the issue.
He said: “The judge has an overriding responsibility to ensure that proceedings are conducted consistently with the proper administration of justice, and so as to avoid any improper interference with its processes.
“There is no statutory prohibition on the use of live text-based communications in open court. But before such use is permitted, the court must be satisfied that its use does not pose a danger of interference to the proper administration of justice in the individual case.
“Subject to this consideration, the use of an unobtrusive, hand-held, virtually silent piece of modern equipment for the purposes of simultaneous reporting of proceedings to the outside world as they unfold in court is generally unlikely to interfere with the proper administration of justice.”
