Video-recording court proceedings is a good idea

Last week the Supreme Court sought the opinion of the Attorney General on the issue of live-streaming and video-recording important proceedings in the apex court. This has been in response to two Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petitions.

Court proceedings are not video-recorded in most jurisdictions of the world, and thus, are only witnessed by the people present in the courtroom at that time. Very few courts allow video recordings and thereafter upload them on the court’s website for anyone interested in watching them, analysing them and drawing conclusions from them. The UK Supreme Court has a vibrant website with copious video recordings. Cricket players watch video recordings of previous matches and learn from the mistakes made earlier. Professionals typically take the help of their trainers and coaches to point out their mistakes and suggest corrective measures. Such corrective techniques are usually not available for lawyers who have to depend on moot courts during their law school days, but in real professional life a few honest peers, very helpful in nature, may do so.

Judges are supposed to speak through their judgments only. In the courtroom, the seasoned judges ask a few questions of the arguing counsel, and again are not supposed to do too much of talking. But, astute practising lawyers often develop the uncanny ability to gauge the mood of any particular judge by keenly observing their body language. Add to that the decibel level of the judge’s voice, and the task becomes a little easier. Thus, very often experienced lawyers can quite successfully predict the outcome of a case being heard by a judge.

A lawyer’s style of communication is guided by the demands of a certain matter, his own basic nature, the judge before whom he is making the arguments, and several other factors, many of them intangible and developed by individual lawyers on their own. For a lawyer, it is like performing on a stage.

But, judges don’t have to perform as lawyers have to. They have to be avid listeners. And while listening they are expected to maintain stoic silence, remain dispassionate and decide the matter before them on the basis of pure merit. Strictly speaking, emotions are not supposed to have any place in the decision-making by legally trained judges. Still, one may observe certain judges becoming emotional, at least showing some signs of emotion rather than sitting stone-faced during proceedings, and sometimes outside the court while meeting members of the legal fraternity or media. An interesting research was conducted using the audio recordings of the US Supreme Court proceedings and the voice modulation of the justices was analysed to come to the conclusion that the pitch of the voice matters and there can be some correlation between the higher pitch of a judge’s voice and the possibility of losing the case.

The researches, one can always argue, are micro analyses and in a way somewhat similar to legal hair-splitting. These are not scientifically proven as gravity. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that the judges are also human beings and each individual has a limit to which they can conceal or camouflage one’s emotions. This threshold varies from individual to individual, and even for the same individual from situation to situation. Though the judges are expected to make decisions objectively, subjectivity often creeps in, and may play the critical role in the final outcome.

It is not proper for a judge to lose temper in the courtroom but sometimes it is a matter of real test of nerves as some lawyers might not leave any stone unturned to unnerve the judge. Many judges have to go through this ordeal at the hands of some senior lawyers, usually notorious for this craft. Judges are expected to maintain self-restraint and not let the situation go out of control. Seasoned lawyers and hardened judges do not let this happen, and keep their antennae ready to receive even the feeblest signals and act accordingly so as not to give an opportunity to the other party to hijack the situation.

Availability of video recordings will make proceedings transparent, instilling greater confidence in the system.