It is upon the ground that Courts of justice are open to the public, that what passes there is public at the time, and that it is important that all persons should be able to scrutinise what is there done, that the publication of everything which there passes has been thought to be lawful.
It is of great consequence that the public should know what takes place in Court; and the proceedings are under the control of the Judges. The inconvenience, therefore, arising from the chance of injury to private character is infinitesimally small as compared to the convenience of publicity.
The superior benefit of the publicity of judicial proceedings counterbalances the injury to individuals, though that at times may be great.
Public policy requires that some hardship should be suffered by individuals rather than that judicial proceedings should be held in secret.
The general rule is an excellent one, that legal proceedings should be in public.
It is one of the essential qualities of a Court of justice, that its proceedings should be public, and that all parties who may be desirous of hearing what is going on, if there be room in the place for that purpose,—provided they do not interrupt the proceedings, and provided there is no specific reason why they should be removed,—have a right to be present for the purpose of hearing what is going on.
Private interest must give place to a common good; the private prejudice that any man hath, is very well repaired by the public utility that comes to the kingdom.
As to proceedings in Courts of justice, it is for the interest of all the public to hear what takes place in Court.
The proceedings in our Courts are founded upon the law of England, and that law is again founded upon the law of nature and the revealed law of God.
It is the excellence of our law that its Judges are illuminated and fortified by the concurrent justice and support of all other arts and sciences, and its honour that these great Courts where it is administered are public, and interfere not with immodesty or indecent subjects, as divorces and other evils of matrimony, which are more easily allayed by private conference, than healed by public discussion.
Public notoriety is nothing here; we can only be informed of the facts relevant to the matter before us.
Words used in the course of legal or judicial proceedings, however hard they might bear on the party of whom they were used, were not such as would support an action for slander.
Fama, qua suspicionem inducit, oriri debet apud bonus et graves, non quidem malevolos etmaledicos, ted providas et fide digIms pertonas, non semel sed scepius, quia clamor minuit et defamatio manifestat: Report, which induces suspicion, ought to arise from good and grave men, who indeed from malevolent and malicious men, but from cautious and credible persons, not only once, but frequently; for clamour diminishes and defamation manifests.