The Federal
Court has agreed to permit a live broadcast of the judgment
summary in the case of Cubillo V Commonwealth of Australia.
Judgment will
be delivered in Darwin on Friday 11 August at 2.00pm Central
time (2.30pm Eastern) by Justice Maurice O’Loughlin.
The judgment
summary will be carried live on ABC Television, Radio
and On Line – and via cable channel Sky News throughout
Australia. Other television and radio networks also have
access to the sound and vision.
It is the
first time that a judgment will be delivered live and
broadcast simultaneously on television, radio and the
internet in Australia.
The judgment
summary can also be seen live on the Federal Court’s
home page www.fedcourt.gov.au
and, as with all Federal Court judgments, the full written
text will be available on line shortly after delivery.
The case was
heard during 1999 and 2000 and ran for 107 days. The Court
sat in Adelaide, Perth, Townsville, Darwin, Tenant, Creek,
Alice Springs and Melbourne. It involved 60 witnesses,
more than 300 exhibits (consisting of many thousands of
pages) and almost 8,000 pages of transcript.
The Court’s
Director of Public Information, Bruce Phillips, said the
judge had agreed to the broadcast because of the great
public interest and because it gave people the opportunity
to hear directly and immediately about the reasons for
his decision. He said this was a view shared by other
judges within the court.
Mr Phillips
said it built upon the Court’s six-years of experience
with court television that included live broadcasts of
judgments on free-to-air, cable television and the internet.
