SENSATIONALIST statements, pictures and footage from outside the island’s courts will shortly be a thing of the past following a House Plenum decision to ban journalists, photographers and cameramen from approaching people appearing in court.
The bill was approved on Thursday but will only come into effect once it has received Presidential approval and appeared in the Official Gazette.
The new law was criticised by television channels yesterday, with one reporter at a private station telling the Cyprus Mail: “People watch the news to find out about these things. What actually happens in the courtroom is often not as interesting as the statements that suspects make outside. It’s not about ratings as such, just making the news as interesting as possible.”
The president of the Journalist’s Union, Andreas Kannaouros, said yesterday some exceptions should have been allowed.
“I personally believe that the law is too all-encompassing. For example there have been many cases of people being abused while they were held in custody and not being able to walk into the courtroom without aid, for example, or having bruises all along their back. It is a journalist’s right and obligation to bring these things to public attention.”
Kannaouros did, however, admit that the free filming and photographing of suspects often led to problems. “I get calls every day from families who have been involved in full-blown dramas when the father, for example has been taken to court for some small offence, but been splashed all over the television and radio. The children are usually too embarrassed to go to school the next day. Basically journalists have to respect our code and a number of them just don’t.”
He said the Supreme Court should have the right to call for exemptions when the need arose, a provision of the law that was removed before it was unanimously approved by the House on Thursday.
Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou, however, said this was not a viable option.
“You understand that it is not practical for a reliable committee to be set up which will decide which suspect falls into which category on their arrival at the courts.”
House Legal Affairs Committee president Panayiotis Demetriou, who was one of the deputies sponsoring the bill, said yesterday that the right to keep the public informed, which is enshrined in European Human Rights law, had been taken into heavy consideration before the law was passed.
“Regulations exist in almost every country, but they are sometimes not enforced. We often see very sensationalist footage in Greece, for example. while Great Britain is much stricter,” Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail.
He said journalists could still cover court proceedings, but would not be allowed to approach suspects as they arrived or left the courts.
Demetriou had earlier also noted that Cyprus was a small country and that someone splashed over the television screens as a suspect might then be released or acquitted, without equivalent coverage as was given to his arrest and remand.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
