The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, yesterday criticised "hysterical" applications to have trials aborted on the basis of inaccurate articles in newspapers.
Judges who consented to such applications were showing a distinct lack of faith in the abilities of juries, he said.
He made the comment during a Supreme Court appeal by The Irish Times Ltd and other media organisations against a decision by a Circuit Court judge to ban contemporaneous reporting of a major drugs trial in Cork last February. The remarks also follow the aborting of a number of trials, including murder trials, on the basis of complaints by counsel over media articles or photographs.
During yesterday's appeal hearing, Mr Justice Hamilton said that over the past number of years there had been a number of hysterical applications to have trials aborted because of articles containing misstatements of fact appearing in the newspapers.
It appeared that judges had aborted several trials as a result of such applications. The Chief Justice said judges had shown "a distinct lack of faith" in the strength of juries, who were "quite capable" of understanding directions to be given to them as to what evidence they were entitled to rely on and what evidence they were obliged to ignore.
Mr Justice O'Flaherty said the applications to discharge juries because of media reports were a "kind of virus" which affected both civil and criminal cases. Legislation was getting increasingly technical and judges should be able to tell juries to ignore incorrect media statements. Also sitting in yesterday's hearing were Mrs Justice Denham, Mr Justice Barrington and Mr Justice Keane.