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The Judiciary and the Media*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2017

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Extract

I am an English judge speaking in Jerusalem at a lecture to honor the memory of an Englishman who was the first member of the English Jewish Community to be appointed to the House of Lords, now the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. That was 60 years ago in 1951. So this is an important anniversary.

This evening, I am seeking to highlight some of the issues that relate to the role of the media and the role of the judiciary in upholding the rule of law, and the interaction of their relationships in a democratic society that respects the rule of law. My experience is British, but my intention is to address questions that arise in any civilized democracy. The essential principles are unaffected by geography.

My overwhelming belief is that the most emphatic feature of the relationship between the judiciary and the media is that the independence of the judiciary and the independence of the media are both fundamental to the continued exercise, and indeed the survival, of the liberties that we sometimes take for granted. I have said before, and I do not apologize for saying it again, these are critical independences, which are linked but separate. As far as I can discover, there never has been, and there is no community in the world in which an independent press flourishes while the judiciary is subservient to the executive or government, or where an independent judiciary is allowed to perform its true constitutional function while, at the same time, the press is fettered by the executive.

Type
The Lionel Cohen Lecture
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , 2011 , pp. 499 - 513
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2011

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Footnotes

*

Delivered at the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on March 28, 2011.

References

1 For much of this information I am indebted to Hargreaves, Robert, The First Freedom—A History of Free Speech (2002)Google Scholar.

2 R v. Bentley, [2001] 1 Cr. App. R. 307.

3 British Chiropractic Association v. Singh, [2010] EWCA Civ 350; Joseph and another v. Spiller and others, [2010] UKSC 53.

4 Jackson, Lord Justice, Review of Civil Litigation Costs: Final Report (2010)Google Scholar.

5 Ministry of Justice, Draft Defamation Bill: Consultation (2011).

6 A v. Independent News and Media Limited, [2010] EWCA Civ 343.

7 R (on the application of Trinity Mirror PLC) v. Croydon Crown Court, [2008] EWCA Crim 50.

8 Judicial Office for England and Wales, A Consultation on the Use of Live, Text-Based Forms of Communications from Court for the Purposes of Fair and Accurate Reporting (2011), available at <http://www.judiciary.gov.uk>.