Live broadcasts of these hearings violate the principle of the presumption of innocence by widely disseminating the content of hearings held during the preliminary stages of the proceedings.
In our legal system, the public nature of judicial proceedings is the general rule. Article 9 of the Organic Code of Courts establishes this by providing that court proceedings are public, except for the exceptions set forth in the law.
Thus, based on the principle of public access, anyone may attend hearings and access the grounds for a judicial decision. Understood in this way, it constitutes a mechanism for overseeing judicial activity.
The problem is that, due to technological advances, public access has become conflated with immediacy and mass dissemination. In fact, it is no longer simply a matter of the average citizen having the opportunity to visit courts, attend a hearing as a member of the public, learn the content of a judicial ruling, and understand the court’s reasoning; rather, it is now understood as immediate and unrestricted access to events unfolding live in a courtroom.
The live broadcast of these hearings, while intended to raise public awareness of how the system works, has extremely harmful effects on the observance of the fundamental rights of the accused and even on the legitimacy of judicial decisions. With regard to the former, the principle of the presumption of innocence—established in the Code of Criminal Procedure and in international treaties—is violated by the widespread broadcast of the content of hearings held during the preliminary stages of the proceedings, which in no case constitute a final conviction.
This is exacerbated by the fact that the broadcast hearings last several days, increasing the public exposure of the case and the perception that it is a trial on the merits akin to an oral trial.
As for the second point, and as counterintuitive as it may seem, the mass broadcasting of hearings calls into question the legitimacy of the judicial process itself. The fact that these are high-profile cases—which often reflect a kind of public outcry in favor of decisions such as ordering pretrial detention—combined with the mass following of the hearing resulting from its online broadcast, creates pressure that can influence the judge’s decision, undermining their impartiality when ruling on a case brought before them.
Pressure stemming from public opinion can create an implicit expectation regarding the bodies called upon to intervene and decide in a judicial proceeding, leading them to impose stricter sanctions, order more far-reaching precautionary measures, and, in general terms, take more extreme measures in order to send a strong message to the community. This circumstance can lead to a clear disproportion between the decisions adopted and the specific facts of the case before the court.
It is imperative to address this issue and return to the original purpose of public disclosure, understanding it as a mechanism for making judicial information available to those who request it, rather than as a tool for the indiscriminate dissemination of the details of criminal cases.
For more information on these topics, please contact our Criminal Litigation Group:
Loreto Hoyos | Partner | lhoyos@az.cl
David Segall | Senior Associate | dsegall@az.cl
Source: The Legal Industry Reviews 25 No. 2. [View here]
