Broadcasting Oral Hearings

Abstract

Broadcasting oral hearings generates questions: TV cameras violate individual rights? Which are the boundaries? A clash between constitutional guarantees rises from this. And this conflict is solved in the light of the fact that our system does not accept absolute rights. One of the characteristics of the State of Right and the republican way of government is advertising their acts and the responsibility of the civil servants. Advertising is a community right to control, and the judiciary is not exempt from this control due to its obligation of solving conflicts and restoring social peace granted by the Constitution.

This is why the legal process, being a government act, must be public and its steps must be known by the citizens. The media, especially television, are a useful tool to make public acts known and controlled by the social society. But this tool cannot be used in an unlimited way. The State must balance the use of different rights by different people.

In the case of oral hearings broadcasting, the boundary is set by the rights of the parts and third parties, the good observation of the legal acts and the achievement of the process goals; all of which make, in the end, the constitutional aim of securing justice that falls upon the State.