This last week the web has been coming into quite a bit of conflict with the law. The cases of Baby P and the leaked BNP list raise questions for how our legal system safeguards information in a world where it changes hands so rapidly with only minimal accountability.
In both cases information that is potentially damaging to people involved has found its way into the public domain in spite of the co-operation of the big media channels. To distribute either the BNP list or certain information in the Baby P case would be breaking either an injunction or court reporting restrictions and potentially leave you open to being found guilty of contempt. It’s still happening.
So there are two options either further cyber police are needed to lock all the virtual doors, or we just let everyone have it.
The first is too expensive and most probably won’t work.
The second option could leave all sorts of sensitive information in the public domain. The names of the people in the Baby P case are widely available, even by text, despite the fact that they may threaten future legal proceedings.
Perhaps what we need to do is move towards a system where the onus is on the jury to exclude this material from their decision, rather than ban the press from distributing it. After all is the reason that people want to know this information not at least partly linked to the fact that they are not allowed to.
Derren Brown knows the power of this all too well.
What might this new law look like?
Well I should probably start by saying that no-one really knows. Even any solution devised today may well be outdated tomorrow. The internet moves fast; Westminster does not.
It seems clear that we have to trust jurors to do their job properly and stop viewing them as the weak link in the chain. Perhaps the only way to gain that trust is to study their workings. This is still prohibited by today’s law.
New contempt laws might:
- Allow publication of material, but put emphasis on the jury to exclude this information.
- Include provisions for extra days to give jurors detailed guidance on what they can and cannot consider.
- Put up jurors in a hotel without access to the net or other media.
- Monitor media use from their homes for the period of the trial.
- Allow for jury members to be struck off or replaced at early stages if they are found to be taking onboard outside influence.
- Include harsher penalties for obvious use of outside influence.
- A thirteenth lay person to monitor impartiality in each case.
- Allow better external monitoring of decision making to refine the system, but not to influence individual cases.
These are just ideas and at this moment in time there is nothing more concrete in place. The contempt of court laws look set to remain inadequate for some time yet.
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