Supreme Court welcomes Twitter

The use of Twitter is now officially sanctioned in the Supreme Court.

In a previous posting we discussed the Lord Chief Justice's guidance on the use of Twitter in other courts open to the public.  That guidance envisaged an application being made to the judge for permission to tweet.   In the Supreme Court, by contrast, no permission is required.  The guidance provides that any member of a legal team or member of the public is free to use text-based communications from court, providing (i) these are silent; and (ii) there is no disruption to the proceedings in court.  This freedom to tweet is subject to three exceptions:

(1) where reporting restrictions are in place;

(2) where a case involves a child and anonymity is of the essence; and

(3) where the Supreme Court orders that its judgment should not be reported so as not to influence other proceedings in a lower court.

See further section 10.2.5 of the Privacy Law Handbook

(Originally blogged by Lindsay Hodgkinson)