Lawyer Jagjit Singh said if there were live broadcasts, witnesses might tailor their evidence in accordance with the testimonies of those who had taken the stand earlier.
“The administration of justice will then be compromised,” said Jagjit who had served as Sessions Court judge before he retired two years ago.
He said court proceedings could not be equated to live English premier league football matches or proceedings in Parliament.
In a trial, witnesses are not allowed to be in the courtroom to observe the proceedings until they have testified.
Jagjit said Section 7 of the Criminal Procedure Code and Section 15 of the Court of Judicature Act only stated that proceedings were open to the public. This, he said, could not be extended to live telecasts.
“I cannot recall of a hearing transmitted to the public during my 30-year tenure in the judicial and legal service,” he added.
Jagjit said this in response to a suggestion, endorsed by lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah who is representing former prime minister Najib Razak in 38 criminal charges, that the trials be broadcast live.
Shafee had described a proposal to have the live telecast of Najib’s trials as a good idea as, he said, proceedings would be carried out in a transparent manner.
A member of the media had mooted the idea during Shafee’s press conference after a court proceeding in relation to the 1MDB and SRC International cases involving Najib earlier.
Meanwhile, Lawyer N Sivananthan said live proceedings to cater for out-of-court audiences could not be done as the credibility of witnesses would be called into question.
“No would-be witnesses are allowed to follow the entire proceedings until and unless they have testified,” he said.
Sivananthan said the live coverage of proceedings to investigate the death of Teoh Beng Hock during a Royal Commission of Inquiry six years ago was a different matter as it was not a trial.
“There, witnesses were called to give evidence but there was no accused standing trial,” he said.
Lawyer Salim Bashir said giving the go ahead for trials to be aired live would be equivalent to allowing all witnesses to sit in the public gallery and follow the case.
He said the murder trial of North Korean Kim Jong Nam at the High Court in Shah Alam was an exception as the court room was too small to accommodate all media representatives.
“The court administrators accorded that privilege to enable as many foreign and local media representatives as possible to cover the case,” said Bashir, who appeared for one of the accused in the trial.
Salim said the court also provided a live coverage to the press corps during the four times that Najib was charged and also during his subsequent bail application proceedings.
“This cannot be extended when Najib’s trials begin and witnesses take the stand,” he added.
On Thursday, Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo rejected the proposal and said there would be no live coverage of Najib’s trials. Bernama and RTM would provide normal coverage of the trial, he added.