The Joint Parliamentary Human Rights Committee has urged caution on the televising of court proceedings.
In a report published on 26 November, the committee described as "too simplistic" the view that, because court proceedings are 'public', the right to respect for private life in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is "not engaged by provisions to confer power on the Lord Chancellor to lift restrictions on filming and broadcasting of court proceedings".
"We agree with the Government's objective of making justice as transparent and publicly accessible as possible," the committee said, "but we are not satisfied that the Government has adequately consulted interested parties nor properly assessed the likely impact of conferring the power to lift filming and broadcasting restrictions on the operation of the criminal justice system."
In particular the committee expressed concern that vulnerable victims, such as those of child abuse or other sexual offences, "might be deterred from coming forward with their complaints, that witnesses also may be deterred from coming forward because greater publicity will exacerbate the perceived risk of intimidation, and that certain defendants such as children may not receive the protection their vulnerability demands."
Reported in the Law Society Gazette, committee chair Dr Hywel Francis MP said: "The power in the Bill is too broad. The Government's current intention is to limit filming to the appellate courts, with the possible addition of sentencing remarks in the Crown court in due course.
"However, as currently drafted, it could too easily be extended to include filming of witnesses, parties, crime victims, jurors and defendants – a very different proposition, which could have the unintended consequence of deterring victims and witnesses, and possibly even undermining the fairness of trials."
It is, he said, potentially a slippery slope. "We would urge the government to move more thoughtfully with wider public consultation and a more detailed impact assessment."
• Report contains Parliamentary information licenced under Open Parliament Licence v1.0