An application by a broadcaster for 'media access' to a courtroom is not an unusual event in the US.

Most, although not all, states permit some form of television and radio access.

They do not allow unqualified or automatic access -- some form of prior application is required.This regime of allowing television access subject to the court's permission and conditions emerged after periods in the US in which there was successively unrestricted camera access, and a total prohibition.

In 1962 Billy Estes was tried in Texas for swindling.

Owing to his connections with politicians there was massive media interest, and the courtroom ended up with 12 cameramen complete with lights and snaking cables.

The US Supreme Court quashed his conviction on the ground that this had denied him a fair trial.It was then some 25 years before a television camera was again admitted to any courtroom.

In the late 1970s Florida embarked on an experiment of court broadcasting subject to stringent judicial controls and permitting only one camera.

In Chandler v Florida the US Supreme Court upheld the convictions of two police officers who had been convicted of burglary in such a televised criminal trial.During the 1980s and 1990s television has become more and more widely permitted in US courtrooms.

I observed a televised affray trial in New York City in 1990 in the course of a visit on behalf of the Bar Council.

None of the participants appeared to me to be behaving any differently from the participants in any other US courtroom.

All the judges to whom I spoke told me their experience of televised trials had been happy.In England and Wales televising in court is prohibited by statute.

By section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 it is an offence to take any photograph in a court.

The prohibition is absolute and without exception, and applies to civil courts as much as to criminal.This law was enacted to prevent still photographs being taken, but on any sensible reading it surely also prohibits the taking of a moving picture.

It is interesting to observe that the Law Chancellor's Department and judges have themselves breached this law when it has seemed sensible to do so.

In the Technology and Construction Court, closed circuit television cameras have been used to facilitate everybody in the courtroom seeing details of a plan on which a witness is pointing out a feature.

In the Blue Arrow Crown Court trial, closed circuit cameras assisted the jury to watch witnesses in the witness box.Scotland has no such law prohibiting the use of cameras in courts and some years ago the Scottish courts permitted a successful series of television programmes to be made of criminal trials.

The principal constraint on the scope of that project was that any individual being filmed had to give his consent.In England there is no statutory prohibition on televising public inquiries.

The decision whether or not to permit televising is one within the discretion of the inspector conducting the inquiry.

In one recent train crash inquiry the inspector gave permission for such coverage, including filming of a crucial witness giving evidence.I hope the statutory prohibition on televising courts will be lifted, and that controlled televising of suitable trials and public inquiries will be permitted.Some cases are by reason of their subject matter unsuitable -- I would never allow any rape or sexual assault case to be televised.

Nor should filming be allowed of any witness who is being put off from giving evidence by it.

But such limitations would still allow plenty of scope for televising.

Open justice has been the English tradition for centuries.

Public trials can be inconvenient and embarrassing, but we have believed those factors to be outweighed by the need to retain public confidence.In an age when television has become the principal source of information for most people, surely a policy of open justice cannot wholly exclude television coverage.