'Where there is no publicity, there is no justice. Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion and the surest of all guards against improbity. It keeps the judge himself while trying under trial.' This saying of Jeremy Bentham about two centuries ago is enough to understand the importance of disseminating the information about the court, its proceedings and verdicts. When people know that justice is possible, they will be motivated to go to the court to safeguard their rights and punish the perpetrators of crime. It establishes the importance of court reporting in journalism and helps the judiciary to disseminate important and everyday events to the masses.
Court reporting has long been established as a specialised form of journalism for long. But very few reporters vie for this discipline because of its demand for expertise in the country's legal system, law-making, court proceeding and high level of accuracy. Some of them are also apprehensive of the contempt of court. While there are courses on journalism, media and communication, and law from high school to the master's level, and a couple of universities are offering court/legal reporting as an optional subject at the master's level, there is a shortage of textbooks in the Nepali language and context.
To fulfil this gap, the Constitutional and Judicial Journalists Forum has published a book containing the basics of the Nepali legal system and court reporting. The book is written and edited by Dr. Liladhar Upadhyaya and Rakesh Bam and contains an introduction to court and court reporting, laws related to court reporting, and a code of conducts issued by the court and journalists' organisation. The book sensitises the readers with brief legal, constitutional and judicial history in Nepal along with the evolution of court reporting. It mentions that the first evidence of court reporting could be found with the publication of news on the verdict of Gorkha Parishad in 1940 (1997 BS), which issued capital punishments for Shukra Raj Shastri, Gangalal Shrestha, Dharma Bhakta Mathema and Dasharath Chand. However, this discipline evolved as a specialised reporting in journalism after the restoration of democracy in 1990.
The authors say that the court reporting is not the field for the junior reporters, especially those who do not have a background in the study of law. Unlike other institutions, the court strictly controls the use of communication equipment such as cameras and recorders; journalists need a separate pass to make an entry, while a lack of clear interpretation regarding contempt of court makes judicial journalism practice fearlessly. According to the book, obtaining information, cross-verification of it, finding alternative sources, understanding the court and legal terminology, and making distinctions between issues concerning violations of the code of conduct by judges and issues regarding contempt of court are posing challenges to judicial journalism in Nepal.
While missing to report the important cases means the media is not fulfilling its responsibility to the society, dissemination of inaccurate or credible information might invite consequences. Since all criminal cases are bound to enter the court, it is pertinent for the media to conduct surveillance of it to serve the public interest. The feeling of media scrutiny makes the institutions more aware of their conduct and responsible towards serving the public interest. On the other hand, court is an important source for various types of news, including humorous and serious ones. "Any form of carelessness, negligence, or dissemination of misleading information can erode public trust in the judiciary. Since this directly impacts the enjoyment of rights by all citizens, careful attention must be paid to this aspect. On the other hand, there can be no two opinions that it is the professional duty of mainstream journalists to expose anomalies and irregularities within the court system. For this reason, court reporting remains a highly responsible and sensitive domain," read the book.
It further observes that it is the professional obligation of a court reporter – or court journalism in general – to take an interest in whether the court, which plays a balancing role in delivering justice and implementing the concept of the rule of law in practice, is efficient or not, and whether its actions are flawed or flawless, as well as to write and broadcast news regarding court proceedings and activities.
The book serves as a fundamental information source on the judicial system in the country, including court, quasi-judicial bodies, security agencies and judicial committees. The process of court is discussed in detail while the authors have defined the major types of cases, hearings and orders, writ applications, scope of the court, and benches. The readers will know about the judges, officials and other staff at the court, qualifications for the courts and attorneys as well. Provisions in the criminal code, the law for individual privacy, the Electronic Transactions Act and other legal instruments have also been presented in the book. Some of the best parts of the book are the presentation of codes of conduct for the court reports from various countries and international institutions and the precedents on the contempt of court related to media matters.
In the precedents presented in the book, the court has reminded the media and journalists about their responsibility while exercising press freedom and freedom of opinion and expression. For example, in its verdict on Karna Shamsher Rana versus advocate Prakash Wasti, it said that whether an act or publication is contemptuous or not is judged by the statements expressed within that act or publication itself; the presence or absence of contemptuous intent is not considered. In contempt proceedings, the argument of a lack of contemptuous intent does not appear to be admissible.
In another verdict, the court said that the constitutional guarantee that no prior restraint shall be imposed on publication, newspaper registrations shall not be cancelled and printing presses shall not be closed or seized – is the trust placed upon the press by the sovereign public.
"The press enjoys immunity from prior restraint only to the extent that the Constitution confers freedom of thought and expression upon citizens. This court can examine whether the exercise of both rights remains within their respective boundaries; there is no hindrance to doing so," read the decision. The book by Upadhyaya and Bam can serve as a handbook for court reporting in Nepal and can also serve as a reference book for the students of law at the universities. However, the size of the text is rather small, which has impacted the readability. Inclusion of a couple of good examples of court reporting from the past and present would have certainly enhanced the attraction and usefulness of the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment