JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS (REGULATION OF REPORTS) ACT, 1926 (AMENDMENT) (Hansard, 2 May 1961)

§ Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to extend the provisions of the Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act, 1926, to proceedings before Ecclesiastical Courts. The Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act. 1926, is, as the Short Title indicates, An Act to regulate the publication of reports of judicial proceedings in such manner as to prevent injury to public morals. The Act consists of two parts. The first part makes it unlawful to print or publish in relation to any judicial proceedings any indecent matter or indecent medical, surgical or physiological details being matter or details the publication of which would be calculated to injure public morals;". It will be noticed that this absolute prohibition applies to all judicial proceedings, whether civil or criminal, or of any other kind, and covers proceedings before an ecclesiastical court.

The second part of the Act makes it unlawful to print or publish in relation to any judicial proceedings for dissolution of marriage, for nullity of marriage, or for judicial separation, or for restitution of conjugal rights, any particulars other than the following…

(i) The names, addresses and occupations of the parties and witnesses;
(ii) a concise statement of the charges, defences and counter charges in support of which evidence has been given;
(iii) submissions on any point of law arising in the course of the proceedings, and the decision of the court thereon;
(iv) the summing-up of the judge and the finding of the jury (if any) and the judgment of the court and observations made by the judge in giving judgment."

The Act was introduced and passed to deal with what had become quite a considerable public scandal—the frequent, copious and wholesale reports of the sordid details of divorce cases. The Act was introduced as a Private Member's Bill, but was adopted by the Government of the day and carried to Second Reading by a majority of 222 to 3.

It appears that by an apparent oversight the Act did not cover proceedings 1135 involving a charge of immorality before ecclesiastical courts. Fortunately, proceedings in ecclesiastical courts involving charges of immorality are comparatively rare. They do occasionally occur, however, and hon. Members will remember the recent proceedings in Southwark Consistory Court, in which Dr. Bryn Thomas, Vicar of the Church of the Ascension, Balham Hill, was involved. He was subsequently suspended and is about to be unfrocked by the Bishop of Southwark.

Those proceedings involved a great deal of publicity—a great many people think that there was far too much publicity—with no restriction on the publication in the Press of all the sordid details of the case. I make no attack on the Press, and have no reason to suppose that the proprietors or members of the Press will be opposed to the Bill.

The object is to repair what I believe was an omission in the Act of 1926, extending its provisions to proceedings before ecclesiastical courts involving charges of immorality. I exclude, of course, all other proceedings before ecclesiastical courts, because, obviously, the same considerations do not apply in any other proceedings before a consistory court in regard to doctrine, for example.

It seems to me that the reasons which justified the passage of the 1926 Act are sufficient to justify the extension of that Act in proceedings before an ecclesiastical court. I should have thought that the grounds for making this extension applied a fortiori. After all, proceedings before an ecclesiastical court are in the nature of domestic proceedings. No crime is involved. If any similar charge were made against a priest of any other denomination or any other minister of religion, whether a Roman Catholic or a Nonconformist, the inquiry would be completely private. No other Church in this country, or, as far as I know, in any other country, would permit proceedings of this kind to be reported in all their sordid details.

Nor is there any necessity for it on grounds of which I am aware. Justice does not require it. No one is suggesting 1136 that these proceedings should be held otherwise than in public, as, of course, are all divorce proceedings in the divorce courts. All proceedings should be open to the public.

The small number of people who opposed the 1926 Act based their opposition on two grounds. Some thought that it would interfere with justice. I think we can claim that thirty-four years' experience of the 1926 Act does not entitle anybody to say that the administration of justice has been in any way impaired by the restriction on the publication of details which that Act imposed.

It was also suggested that full publicity might act as a deterrent. I hardly think that that argument can be applied here. No one could suggest that the deterrent effect of publicity would weigh with anyone in the situation of Dr. Thomas, for example, knowing that a finding of guilt and consequent deprivation must be the end of any ecclesiastical career.

On the other hand, the argument of a deterrent may well act in the opposite direction. It may well be that, faced with the alternative of either permitting matters of this kind to continue, or commencing proceedings knowing the full publicity and the scandal which would result, a bishop would hesitate to take action.

On those grounds, I hope that leave will be given to bring in this Bill, which is supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House and by a number of distinguished institutions outside.