If You Ask Me / By Martha Knight

We want open government. Polls keep confirming this.

We want open meetings. We want records of meetings to be available, preferably online.

A lot of the desire for open government focuses on the legislative side, and on county and municipal government, that which is closest to us.

Some of those municipal governments combine legislative and executive branches, or at least blur the boundaries between them. For instance, county commissioners have legislative and executive functions. Sometimes when they are conferring they are in executive mode. If not, when the commissioners, or any two of them, converse about county business, it would be a violation of open meetings laws.

Likewise, sometimes township supervisors are handling things within their executive powers, carrying out decisions that were made in public.

But what about the other branch of government? How about the courts?

Back when we actually had community access to television viewers, using Channel 9, with Port Allegany Community TV (PACTV) broadcasting various events its volunteers had taped at certain times in the week, the big cameras would be set up at games,  plays and concerts, parades, borough council and township supervisors and school board meetings and other happenings.

But how about in court? No way. Not in magisterial district courts, and certainly not in the Court of Common Pleas. Not in Commonwealth Court, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Superior Court. Not in federal courts so far as I know.

The public is admitted to many of those proceedings, and may sit back in the public area and behave. But all communications devices and cameras must be left outside.

I can take a camera into most local government meetings, and take photographs pretty much at will, so long as I am not disruptive.

Even at the court house my camera does not arouse any alarm so long as I am in the usual government areas. Most government officials are not loath to be photographed carrying out their governmental functions. That is especially true if they are running for re-election, or planning to, it seems to me.

But judges are not like other officials, although in Pennsylvania we elect them. They are camera averse, at work. They do not appreciate the use, by private citizens, of cameras or recording devices. If there is any recording or video capturing to be done, the court will cause it to be done, and members of the public don’t have access to the record thus captured.

Rules about this are not uniform across the country. And president judges of our Courts of Common Pleas have the power to make local rules governing that and many other things. But most seem to be hostile to photography and audio and video recording by members of the public, including the press.

In our court house I am obliged to surrender my camera and cell phone if I want to go “upstairs” to the court area.

The whole area seems to be sacrosanct, not just the court rooms being used for court proceedings. When renovations made it necessary for the commissioners to use a room on the second floor, thought of as being in the judges’ bailiwick, I had to hand over my camera before being allowed to attend the commissioners’ meeting.

To paraphrase a song (Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Mel Torme recorded great versions), “Their rules are laughable, unphotographable…” But I do notice that it is not the person of the judge that may not be photographed. I know that because every so often the president judge himself descends to the first floor and attends a meeting of the county commissioners, there to lead a presentation concerning one of his favorite programs, wherein some non-violent offenders are given alternative punishments, and perform community service and horticultural wonders.

Those appearances are most instructive. Of course the commissioners have been instrumental in getting and keeping those programs going. They have helped with the funding, for instance, and acceded to the use of county property, and approved more staff and vehicles. They are interested in the results.

But it is also the case that those appearances are photo ops.

I see that a Democratic Representative from Virginia and a Republican Senator from Iowa have called upon the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to implement video recordings of oral argument.

There has been talk of that for a while, and some open government fans had hoped that Chief Justice John Roberts’ year-end report would announce that such a change was contemplated. But it didn’t.

The Iowa congressman, Gerry Connolly, said, “This is not some mystical, druidic priesthood that periodically deigns to review constitutional issues and hand down their wisdom from on high. It is a human institution, it’s a branch of government, and it needs to come into the 21st century.”

The senator, Chuck Grassley, said, “The founders intended for trials to be held in front of all the people who wished to attend.” In those days everything was live and in person. But now people telecommute to work and attend college remotely, and in come courts testify by speakerphone. What is wrong with televising proceedings that may impact our system of justice itself, government, elections, lifestyles and many personal liberties?

As I was told by an unelected official recently, when I protested a decision that will limit press coverage locally, “The people who are interested can always attend.”

Well, no, they can’t, and that is one reason they want the press to be able to serve as their proxy and provide coverage. And where SCOTUS meets, in that great, grand building in Washington, D.C., with the huge flight of steps and the enormous pillars? Proceedings are held in a chamber with seating for 70 in the public area.

Peace