Introduction

Though news media reports of court proceedings in New Zealand routinely utilise photographs and audio-visual recordings of proceedings, such coverage of courts is a relatively recent phenomenon.

The reporting of court proceedings in New Zealand is governed by the common law principle of open justice, as qualified and codified by the law of contempt and various statutory restrictions on courtroom publicity and rights enshrined by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. It is ultimately regulated by judges' inherent jurisdiction to constrain reporting where the administration of justice so requires.

Though not expressly prohibited by statute or the common law, prior to 1995 audio-visual reporting of court proceedings had not, with few exceptions, been permitted by New Zealand's judges, who in exercising the discretionary power of their inherent jurisdiction to regulate court proceedings were said to have taken ‘the unwritten view that cameras were an unwelcome intrusion to the sanctity of the courtroom’.

A three-year pilot project with television coverage (later extended to encompass press photography and radio) was undertaken in four courts between 1 February 1995 and 31 January 1998. The favourable findings of the evaluation of this experiment led to the rules governing the experiment being made permanent and extended to other New Zealand courts in 1999. Guidelines governing the ‘expanded media coverage’ were subsequently revised and relaxed in 2000 and 2003.

This chapter considers some aspects of New Zealand's experiences with televising of court proceedings.