Letter: 21st-century courts

Lord Bracadale's decision to allow the use of Twitter in the sentencing of Tommy Sheridan (your report, 27 January) is a bold move and a landmark ruling for the Scottish court system. This comes after the recent ruling where tweeting from court was allowed by England and Wales' Lord Chief Justice Judge.

It has been said that social networking in the courtroom has been allowed to bring fair and accurate reports on proceedings. While it opens up a new perspective on reporting from court, it also opens the door to reporters potentially facing charges of contempt of court and defamation if reports are not fair and accurate.

Given the fact they only have 140 characters to play with in each tweet, reporters may succumb to the temptation to report only the most salacious aspects of a court hearing; producing a report which may not be a fair account of the proceedings and therefore opening themselves up to the aforementioned charges.

It's certainly important for the courts to move with the times and it will be interesting to see how the courts police who tweets and what information is tweeted. But the age-old concept of contempt of court has been in place for hundreds of years in order to protect the sanctity of the court.

A Scottish Court Service spokeswoman said: "The test in all of this is whether there is a threat to the proper administration of justice," and only time will be tell if tweeting in the court room will improve or hinder the court system and its administration of justice.

Naomi Pryde

Tods Murray

Fountainbridge

Edinburgh