Journalists can tweet from court, says Lord Chief Justice
Journalists will be allowed to tweet from court following a ruling today by the Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales.
However he cautioned that anyone wanting to send electronic messages from the courtroom would first need the judge's permission and this could be denied in criminal cases.
Lord Judge's stance on courtroom tweets has been eagerly awaited since journalists were granted approval to use the social networking site at the bail hearing of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange last week.
His interim guidance comes into effect immediately but there will follow a consultation on the issue.
He said: "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."
Campbell Deane, a partner at legal firm Bannatyne Kirkwood France & Co, had earlier told The Drum that he could not see a problem with journalists tweeting from court so long as they remained "fair and accurate".
This was echoed by Lord Justice, who said: "The most obvious purpose of permitting the use of live, text-based communications would be to enable the media to produce fair and accurate reports of the proceedings.
"Without being exhaustive, the danger to the administration of justice is likely to be at its most acute in the context of criminal trials - for example, where witnesses who are out of court may be informed of what has already happened in court."