Television has captured many momentous moments, such as man walking on the moon and terrible wars.

Today, though, the debate on how much freedom the cameras should be allowed has taken a fresh twist as TV companies ask for permission to broadcast legal proceedings.The US media giant CNN's application to be allowed to show the Harold Shipman inquiry has given the debate a new impetus by invoking the European Convention on Human Rights (see [2001] Gazette, 4 October, 4).And the makers of documentaries are champing at the bit to film the hallowed interiors of courts.'It annoys me that when I want to show the workings of a court, I have to go to the east coast of the United States, because I can't film in this country.

Their courts are little different and no more exciting than ours,' says Nick Catliff, who spent a year filming the documentary 'Boston Law', and a similar amount of time closer to home producing a fly-on-the-wall series on trials in Edinburgh.

There, unlike in England and Wales, cameras can be permitted to enter the courts in certain circumstances.But many believe the presence of cameras could have a detrimental effect on the process of justice.

That is the view of Michael Caplan, a partner at the London crime firm Kingsley Napley, and chairman of the Association of Higher Court Advocates.

He says: 'I think we should be very wary of filming.

I'm not sure it's in the interests of justice.

A witness might feel inhibited in giving evidence, or not want to give evidence at all.'And although inquiries have separate rules, if filming went ahead and the sky did not fall in, then it would affect the arguments about the practical merits of cameras in court proceedings.Judges stress the distinction between court cases and public inquiries, and say we should be wary of drawing too many conclusions from whatever is decided following the CNN application.The Shipman inquiry, as Judge David Pearl, director of studies at the Judicial Studies Board points out, is the responsibility of the Department of Health, not the Lord Chancellor's Department.

'It is to an extent an accident that it is chaired by a judge,' he says.

'It could equally have been somebody else.'He says judges have been given no training in how to handle cameras in court, because cameras are not allowed by law in England and Wales.While the Bar Council says it would consider cameras with safeguards for witnesses, solicitors tend to be more cautious, perhaps because they have greater day-to-day contact with the clients who become the witnesses and would be most affected by television cameras.Susan Aslan, a partner at London firm DJ Freeman, whose clients include Channel Four, Channel Five, Sky and Carlton, has acted in many of the high-profile media cases of the past decade, and is concerned about the impact of television on the family and friends of witnesses.Ms Aslan believes the ordeal of giving evidence in court, and in front of the assailant in assault cases, may be worsened.

'Imagine your mum, your ex-boyfriend, your kids, your kids' schoolfriends, wa tching it.'She insists there is a qualitative difference in the impact of actual film, which is far harsher than artists' sketches, and the analysis which television uses now.Mr Caplan agrees there is already a degree of inhibition of witnesses, who are surrounded by the paraphernalia and procedures of a court, but that it would be worse on TV.'It is already a painful time for them.

It could make it worse.

It is not just the presence of the TV cameras, but the thought that the evidence will be broadcast to the outside world,' he says.1The effect on witnesses of the physical presence of a camera in their faces is probably now much more of a theoretical than a real one.

Technology has changed the equation.

It is no longer physically a question of cameramen with lights and snaking cables across the courtroom, but of a small box on the desk.Rikki Klieman, a defence attorney in the US since 1980, and now one of the anchors for the US cable channel, Court TV -- with 74 million subscribers -- says: 'The best way to have cameras is for them to be worked by robotics by someone sitting at the back, you want one on the witness box, one on the judge, and the lawyer.

As far as I'm concerned I don't care if it's the back of my head filmed -- which it often was -- because it became a part of the furniture.'Mr Caplan agrees the physical presence of cameras has not affected him on occasions where he has been involved, during the inquiry into the sinking of the Marchioness, where closing speeches by counsel were filmed, and when the first extradition proceedings for General Pinochet at Bow street Magistrates Court were transmitted to another court by closed-circuit TV.He says: 'I must admit the technical side has always been very professional and unobtrusive.

I didn't find it inhibiting and I tried to speak to the court not to the cameras.'But Ms Aslan is not convinced, and she says their presence will alter the way courts behave.

'In the OJ Simpson trial it was thought that participants, including the judge, were playing to the media,' she says.'To an extent, it already happens in high-profile cases.

I have seen it with cases I have been involved in where the emphasis might have been changed by television.' But this is, she says, better than the situation would be if television were actually allowed into the courts.Ms Klieman says in the 700 cases which Court TV has covered, the cameras has generally not influenced behaviour in the courtroom.

'OJ was the only one,' she says.

'If the judge is properly in charge of the proceedings, there will be no problems', she argues.

'Only if there are weaknesses in the proceedings will television magnify them.'And lawyers for CNN, including Mark Stephens and Amber Melville-Brown from London law firm Finers Stephens Innocent and Geoffrey Robertson QC, were able to point out that it is not just many states in the US that permit televising of proceedings, cameras are also allowed in Holland.While in France -- in a peculiarly gallic compromise -- the media may film through the open courtroom door.Closer to home, the Scottish experiment in 1994 -- where cases were filmed for a year then edited and broadcast with the consent of all involved -- caused no problems.

Even three-manned cameras passed unnoticed after the first 15 minutes, Mr Catliff says.

He maintains that the English senior judiciary was at that time slowly drifting towards experimenting with cameras, until the OJ Simpson trial the following year, which he believes 'blew the possibility out of the water' politically.But now six yea rs later, there are signs that the government is dipping its toes carefully in the water again.

The Lord Chancellor is considering a pilot project to cover the Court of Appeal, which has no witnesses.

'The government does not favour the televising of trials,' the official government policy document published in February says.

'We believe that this would distort the trial process and be unfair to witnesses and jurors.

However, we do believe that there is a case for the public to be able to watch appeal proceedings via television.'Within the existing law, we will consider requests by television companies who may be interested in making a pilot to demonstrate to the Lord Chancellor and to the senior judiciary the educational benefits of such a programme.'Three documentary makers have already applied to make such a programme.

The department says talks are at an early stage, and it cannot give any details about the applicants or what they have in mind.This proposal from the Lord Chancellor encapsulates the paradox at the heart of the debate.

The court cases and the parts of court cases which would make the best television are the same ones which the opponents most want to resist.Politicians and lawyers wish to exclude cameras from the 'best television', the human interest.

And the media, in turn, tends to argue the public interest as a way to protect its free access to the human interest.

And that is not an entirely dishonest argument.

It is not possible to educate the public if they are not watching.Mr Catliff says: 'We always say we want to show public policy and shed light on the criminal justice system, and we do so.

But something like OJ we want to show because it is dynamite -- it is about race, murder, and celebrity.'One aspect of the argument for admitting cameras is the existing view of courts and justice that people draw from the way television and newspapers report trials now, which is far from full, balanced and illuminating of the wheels of justice.As Mr Catliff says: 'As newspapers retreat from serious court reporting, the administration of justice in Britain is increasingly invisible.

Television news too is less and less interested in the courts.

They report the opening and maybe the end and that's it.'Ms Klieman similarly argues that television, preferably live, would be an improvement on what we have now in Britain.

'I watched OJ try on those gloves,' she says, referring to a key piece of the prosecution case against him.

'It was clear they didn't fit.

The newspaper reports the following day said he had made it look like they didn't fit.

I was in the courtroom -- they did not fit.'In this respect her views will strike a chord with many English criminal lawyers, even if they disagree with her conclusion, when she says: 'I have read reports of hundreds of different cases I've appeared in and wondered what courtroom they were in.

If the cameras were there, people could make their own decisions.'But solicitors are still agonising over whether or not to take a decision which would be a giant leap for the profession.