Media plays vital role in ensuring justice is done

To understand our rights, we need to know how our justice system works — so, full and fair reporting helps ensure that the citizen’s interests are honoured, says Olivia O’Kane

OPEN justice is a deeply rooted and fundamental principle to all democracies. It is a principle that is subject only to narrow exceptions to ensure public scrutiny of the operation of our justice system and public confidence in its outworking.

As Lord Diplock put it in Attorney General v Leveller Magazine Limited [1979] AC 440 at 450A to C: “If the way that courts behave cannot be hidden from the public ear and eye, this provides a safeguard against judicial arbitrariness or idiosyncrasy and maintains the public confidence in the administration of justice. The application of this principle of open justice has two aspects: as respects proceedings in the court itself, it requires that they should be held in open court to which the press and public are admitted and that, in criminal cases at any rate, all evidence communicated to the court is communicated publicly.”