By the time this issue of Legal Week hits the streets, Lord Hutton will have delivered his verdict on the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly. The political impact will no doubt be huge. In time, the inquiry may also come to be viewed as a watershed in a different way, representing the point at which the arrival of television cameras into this country’s court rooms became inevitable.
At the start of his inquiry, Hutton heard an application from Geoffrey Robertson QC on behalf of various television companies for the bulk of the hearings to be televised. Robertson argued that refusing to allow cameras into the proceedings contravened article 10 of the European Convention on Human rights, which guarantees freedom of expression and the right “to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority”. He also maintained that Lord Denning’s characterisation of journalists as “watchdogs of justice” needed to be updated to reflect the importance of television as a disseminator of news.
