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Cameras
Continued From Page 1
bring cameras into his province’s
courtrooms.
“I believe in the open courts
principle. I want the public to be
able to know as much as possible
about what’s going on in the
courtroom,” Bentley said.
“We have to
make sure that,
if we decide to
move further in
this area, that
we can main-
tain the integ-
rity of the judi-
cial process,
which is the
number one priority, and deal
with any special issues that
might arise with the litigants or
with witnesses.”
Bentley’s comments come
after the release, through a free-
dom of information request, of a
report on a 2007 pilot project
that webcast 21 cases argued
before the Ontario Court of
Appeal. The report’s main rec-
ommendation is that Ontario
amend its Courts of Justice
Act —which bans camera use
except for limited purposes, such
as public education—to permit
camera access.
Bentley said there’s no time-line on his initiative and after
canvassing judges he will consult other justice system players
and the public before moving
forward.
Supreme Court of Canada
hearings have been broadcast
since 1997 and courts of appeal
in several provinces have either
run pilot projects or allowed the
media to apply for camera access
on a case-by-case basis. Ontario’s
pilot project was preceded by
coverage of the 10-day appeal
hearing that exonerated Steven
Truscott of a 1959 murder, which
was streamed live on the web
and archived online.
These initiatives, coupled
with the increasing quality of
images and audio captured by
ever-smaller cameras and the
ease of broadcasting on
the Internet,
make televising trial proceedings the
next logical
step.
The CBC’s
senior legal
counsel Daniel Henry, who has been lobbying for camera access for almost
three decades, welcomed the
Ontario report’s recommendations and Bentley’s comments—and he says judges
should, too.
“I think the more people
know, the more they appreciate
the system,” he told The Lawyers
henry
Bentley
Weekly. “So from the point of
view of a judge, toiling day in
and day out, trying to do justice,
it’s the best way of getting his or
her message across…it would in
practice help improve public
confidence in the system.”
B.C. has a head start on
Ontario on the road to wider
camera access. A year ago then-
attorney general Michael de
Jong touted cameras as a tool to
make the courts more open and
accountable.
In November his government
announced a pilot project to install
cameras in courthouses in Vancouver, Victoria and Kamloops to
televise sentencing hearings in
provincial court—if the presiding
judge permits such access.
B.C.’s provincial court followed up in February with practice rules that invite the media to
apply to broadcast “all or part of
the proceedings in a particular
case.” The judge must consider
whether privacy interests, discomfort to a witness, additional
expense to the court or the fair
trial rights of the parties outweigh the public interest in televising the proceedings.
The B.C. Supreme Court
introduced similar rules in July
“It’s difficult enough
to get [witnesses]
to come forward
when they aren’t going
to have, potentially
their face, or their
voice, broadcast
across the Internet.
2010 that exclude an array of
hearings, including cases involving minors, family law disputes,
bail hearings, criminal or civil
cases involving allegations of
sexual assault and hearings
involving undercover police
investigations
and confidential business
information.
Such restrictions don’t surprise Toronto
lawyer Judith
Huddart, a former chair of the
CBA’s family
law section, which passed a
motion in 2002 opposing camera access to family law cases,
other than appellate hearings.
“We do not want the family
courts to become the next reality
show,” she says. Besides the
potential for invading the privacy of parties or exposing confidential information, she’s con-
huddart
vinced televised coverage would
zero in on “most salacious parts”
of a case. “That’s not really a
good insight for the public into
what really goes on in family
law.”
Vancouver criminal lawyer
Eric Gottardi, who acts for both
defendants and the Crown, says
he and other lawyers have mixed
feelings about
arguing their
cases in front of
the camera.
“It would be
nice if members
of the public
could see what
goes on in our
courts, directly,
and not having it to be filtered
through anyone’s reporting,” says
Gottardi, of the B.C. branch of
the CBA’s national criminal jus-
tice section. “It would help edu-
cate the public in terms of the
types of evidence that gets put
forward, the types of submis-
sions and arguments that often
happen in our courts.”
But he’s concerned that tele-
vising trials could make some
witnesses reluctant to come for-
ward. “It’s difficult enough to get
them to come forward when
they aren’t going to have, poten-
tially their face, or their voice,
broadcast across the Internet.”
The B.C. courts’ rules allow
judges to deny camera access to
protect the safety of a witness
or if televising the proceeding
has “the potential effect of
deterring witnesses in any
future similar cases.”
Henry, however, points out
that witnesses have been testify-
ing on camera at public inquiries
for years. And some wit-
nesses—such as police officers,
experts and politicians — would
be comfortable testifying in the
public eye.
“We’ll see more coverage of
lawyers’ submissions and I think
that will lead to more coverage of
witnesses,” Henry predicts. “It’s
going to take time but it’s going
to happen. And it’s in everyone’s
interest for it to happen.”
Chris Bentley says cost will be
a factor as Ontario considers
establishing camera access — the
2007 pilot project cost
$325,000—but it’s time to take
a fresh look at the issue.
“When we had the discussion
10 or 25 years ago, we didn’t
have Facebook. We didn’t have
Blackberrys. We didn’t have
Twitter. We didn’t have the
Internet,” he noted. “We have
come a long way in the movement of information and our
ease and familiarity with it…let’s
see where we go.” n
Gottardi
With files from Cristin Schmitz
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