NJIKO: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal of Humanities, Law, Education and Social Sciences

The purports of the open justice principle practically pits the sacred right of his Lordship to entertain cases with self-possession, insulation from external pressure and sometimes with confidentiality, against the court reporter's drive to offer the required transparency to the justice administration process. Key as the reporter's job is to the actualization of this principle, he is often accused of slapdashness, sensationalism, incompetence and lack of basic knowledge of the workings of the court in his reportage. The reporter is perceived to have infringed reporting restriction when a matter is not reported from his lordships preferred angle and he surfers consequences. This work attempts to justify the reporter's presence in court, expose the budding reporter to authentic news sources in the court system and highlight legal landmines his indifference to which renders him vulnerable to contempt proceedings. Given that publicity is the soul of justice in the open justice system, the paper enjoins the bench to accord deserving attention to the role of the press in the court of law and the reporter to be heedful in his operations therein, of all official procedures that could subject him to his lordship's wrath. The paper projects the position that the bench and the press cannot but interface as partners, in the pursuit of a rewarding democratic experience. Data were sourced through secondary sources in addition to personal observation.

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