Senior Presiding Judge Senior President
For England and Wales of Tribunals
Blogging by Judicial Office Holders
Introduction
This guidance is
issued on behalf of the Senior Presiding Judge and the Senior President of
Tribunals. It applies to all courts and tribunal judicial office holders in
England and Wales, and is effective immediately.
Definitions
A “blog” (derived
from the term “web log”) is a personal journal published on the internet. “Blogging”
describes the maintaining of, or adding content to, a blog. Blogs tend to be
interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments. They may also contain links
to other blogs and websites. For the purpose of this guidance blogging includes
publishing material on micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.
Guidance
Judicial office holders should be acutely aware of the need to
conduct themselves, both in and out of court, in such a way as to maintain
public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.
Blogging by
members of the judiciary is not prohibited. However, judicial office holders
who blog (or who post comments on other people’s blogs) must not identify
themselves as members of the judiciary. They must also avoid expressing
opinions which, were it to become known that they hold judicial office, could
damage public confidence in their own impartiality or in the judiciary in
general.
The above
guidance also applies to blogs which purport to be anonymous. This is because
it is impossible for somebody who blogs anonymously to guarantee that his or
her identity cannot be discovered.
Judicial office
holders who maintain blogs must adhere to this guidance and should remove any
existing content which conflicts with it forthwith. Failure to do so could
ultimately result in disciplinary action. It is also recommended that all
judicial office holders familiarise themselves with the new IT and Information
Security Guidance which will be available shortly.
August 2012
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