Lights, camera, legal action! Courts to livestream divorce proceedings

Getting a divorce is never a pleasant experience, but it could also become a very public one in the UK, as legal proceedings are set to be livestreamed online.

The country’s Court of Appeal will stream family hearings — which include certain divorce cases and child social care proceedings — online in an attempt to improve the public’s understanding of the legal system, the Ministry of Justice said Thursday.

The court deals with appeals from other courts and tribunals and is the highest court within the senior courts of England and Wales.

The legal proceedings will be broadcast on the official judiciary website, as well as on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the first hearing is expected later in the year.

Cases with reporting restrictions will not be shown, and cases will be streamed with a 90-second time delay, meaning judges and court staff could halt broadcasting if needed, the ministry said.

The plan to broadcast family hearings follows a 2018 pilot project, in which some civil cases were livestreamed.

Read more:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/13/uk/livestream-divorces-intl-scli-gbr/index.html