Tweeting in court for first time

Former Senator Stuart Syvret was in court again on Monday where he is suing the Chief Minister, the former Attorney General, the States of Jersey and the Employment Board over what he claims was his unfair dismissal as Health Minister in 2007.

Syvret says those people had a duty to support him in that role - and they failed.

At the Royal Court Syvret had to show he had a legal right to claim compensation for losing his job.

He argues civil servants engaged in a conspiracy to cover up child abuse in the island which he was trying to expose - culminating in him being forced out of his job.

The presiding judge, Jonathan Sumption, was brought in because Syvret was adamant that no local judge would meet the test of objectivity. Although most of the morning was spent discussing Syvret's application for Sumption to recuse - in other words excuse - himself from the case due to apparent bias.

The grounds of this bias, according to Stuart Syvret lay in the fact that Sumption is friend and acquaintance of parties with an "interest" in the case - those being Sir Philip Bailhache, who was Bailiff between 1995 and 2009, Mr Michael Birt, the now Bailiff who was Deputy Bailiff from 2000 to 2009, Sir Philip's brother, Mr William Bailhache, who was Attorney General between 2000 and 2009, before becoming Deputy Bailiff and Mr Tim Le Cocq, who succeeded him as Attorney General.

Nevertheless, Jonathan Sumption refused to recuse himself, and the court went on to hear the defendants' application to get the case struck out.

The Solicitor General argued there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the case, and that he was bringing his action too late.

Meanwhile, after much deliberation it became apparent that Syvret's case was actually centered around a claim for damages caused prior to his dismissal as a result of public authorities failing to discharge their duty of care towards him and causing him substantial emotional and psychological harm.

Hence the challenge for Mr Syvret, who represents himself, became to show that he had a legal right to compensation, on the presumption that his facts are true.

The question for Mr Sumption, meanwhile, became much narrower than initially thought. He will now have to determine whether the States do have such a duty of care - in which case it could go to a full trial- if not, the case would be struck out.

A judgement is expected early on Wednesday morning.

A court case in Jersey yesterday is believed to have made legal history in the island after 'tweeting' was allowed - and Channel Television were there to put it into action.

The judge hearing former Senator Stuart Syvret's case regarding his alleged unfair dismissal yesterday allowed information from the proceedings to be posted on social network website Twitter by those in the courtroom.

It is believed to be the first time the social network site has been used from court in the island.

Tweeting is now the most instant way for the public and journalists to get information out.

On Monday Channel Television covered Syvret's case. The hearing began by Mr Syvret asking the presiding Judge, Jonathan Sumption QC whether he would mind people tweeting from Court.

He had no objections, nor did anyone else. So for the rest of the day our reporter Iselin Vale tweeted updates from the Royal Court - a first for Channel Television.

But it does raise a number of issues - what guidelines should we go by, when would it be inappropriate, and probably most importantly, could it ever interfere with the proper administration of justice?

Jersey currently has no statutory guidelines regarding tweeting in court.

The UK however, operates under a December ruling from the Lord Chief Justice that tweeting is permitted provided it does not interfere with the legal process.

Subject to that, the ruling read: "...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."

It goes on to say: "Without being exhaustive, the danger to the administration of justice is likely to be at its most acute in the context of criminal trials e.g., where witnesses who are out of court may be informed of what has already happened in court and so coached or briefed before they then give evidence, or where information posted on, for instance, Twitter about inadmissible evidence may influence members of a jury. However, the danger is not confined to criminal proceedings; in civil and sometimes family proceedings, simultaneous reporting from the courtroom may create pressure on witnesses, distracting or worrying them."

The UK is about to conduct a consultation on the use of text-based communication in court, involving various representatives of the legal system and the media. The outcome of that will decide whether current guidelines should stand.

But for now it seems judges really rule their own court - deciding on a case by case basis whether social media is the right medium.

Tweeting in court for first time