Cameras compatible with justice

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/03/2010 (5862 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Provincial court Judge Tim Preston on Friday decided there will be no cameras in his courtroom when the inquest into the death of 45-year-old Brian Sinclair begins. To allow them, Judge Preston said, may compromise "fairness, dignity, decorum and privacy" in the court. The judge was protective of the privacy of the nurses who will testify about how the disabled, aboriginal man died from a simple bladder infection, while sitting 34 hours in Health Sciences Centre’s ER in September 2008.

The ruling is a setback for the modern embodiment of the old precept of an open courtroom, which the Supreme Court of Canada dubbed the cornerstone of common law. The doors are open so the public can see justice being done, with all its elegance and warts, to decide themselves if the decision of a judge accords with the evidence heard. This is the way the public can have faith in the law’s administration.

Media organizations and Mr. Sinclair’s family asked Judge Preston to allow the placement of fixed, remotely controlled cameras so video of the proceedings could be viewed by all people, in particular those in northern, isolated communities. It is impractical for the vast majority of Manitobans to attend, impossible for a courtroom to accommodate more than a relative handful of them.

Most Manitobans will have to rely upon reports, including those of the media, and a filtered version of the inquest. That is restrictive, but Mr. Preston believes it is sufficient to uphold the principle of openness.

His decision is most egregious when it seeks to justify rejecting the camera — an objective, uncensored record of the inquest proceedings — on the basis that putting people on TV will offend fairness, decorum and privacy. A camera does not judge; at a distance it is not obnoxious and no more conspicuous than any other observer. Streaming the video live, as the Free Press hoped to do, would give people an unedited account. Arguably, that serves the interest of all parties.

No witness testifying in a public courtroom has the luxury of privacy. That is a necessary trade-off that the need for transparency in routine justice exacts of all parties to the proceeding.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and the Manitoba Nurses Union insisted the nurses had a right to privacy and would be endangered if they appeared on TV. The WRHA said HSC has lost ER nurses due to the publicity of the Sinclair case and more would compound the problem, imperilling the ER’s status as a trauma site.

While there was no evidence to support the latter point, Mr. Preston said he was convinced nurses were under strain. The obvious solution to a legitimate worry for the well-being of witnesses is to consider individual requests to turn off the cameras temporarily. This is the way trials, inquests and other judicial hearings restrict the public’s presence in court now. Instead, the judge deemed the entirety of the inquest too fragile to survive the passive gaze of the camera’s eye.

Mr. Preston concluded it was for a judges’ committee to decide if electronic recording devices should be allowed in court, and on what basis.

It is unfortunate Mr. Preston passed up this chance to bring Manitoba courts into the electronic age. The principle that upholds the tradition of the open courtroom is the same that asserts the right to welcome a TV camera in. This is what British Columbia’s attorney general has now recognized. TV will help demystify the courts and engage citizens in the justice system that, for too many, is poorly understood.

Manitoba’s former attorney general Dave Chomiak beat B.C. to that conclusion a year ago, as did former provincial court chief justice Ray Wyant.

Manitoba’s courts need to step into the 21st century. Inconspicuous cameras, audio recordings and social media devices can connect people instantly and intimately with the courthouse, tearing at the barriers to access and the misconceptions that result. It is time Manitoba’s judges accept the fact.