Communicating courts: a decade of practice in the third arm of government

Abstract

In 1993 the Australian court system and the judiciary began systematically introducing a public information service into the third arm of government. Until the early 1990s, the judiciary and the courts in Australia had not engaged professional communicators, despite there being a massive presence in this role in the other two arms of government: the Legislative and the Executive. Having just emerged from this first decade of the adoption of formalised public information, the courts are now well positioned to evaluate the changes that have occurred during this time. The first decade has focused on media liaison. This paper will look at the developments of the past decade, including moves to expand television access to the courts, and ultimately suggest how the courts may develop their communication in the future.