Contempt of Court: Court Reporting

Current project status

• Initiation: Could include discussing scope and terms of reference with lead Government Department
• Pre-consultation: Could include approaching interest groups and specialists, producing scoping and issues papers, finalising terms of project
• Consultation: Likely to include consultation events and paper, making provisional proposals for comment
• Policy development: Will include analysis of consultation responses. Could include further issues papers and consultation on draft Bill
• Reported: Usually recommendations for law reform but can be advice to government, scoping report or other recommendations

Government has welcomed our recommendations and will consider how an online reporting restriction database could be taken forward

We published a report explaining and setting out our recommendations in this area on 26 March 2014.

In our report we recommended:

• ensuring that postponement orders on court reporting are all posted on a single publicly accessible website (a similar website currently operates in Scotland), and
• including a further restricted service where, for a charge, registered users can access the terms of the order and sign up for automated email alerts of new orders.

The Government has welcomed these recommendations, and will consider how an online reporting restriction database could be taken forward as existing technology is updated and replaced.