Section 40: Open Court and Sunday or Public Holiday Sittings

(1)The place in which any criminal court is held for the purpose of trying any offence shall be deemed an open court to which the public generally may have access, so far as the court can conveniently contain them; but the magistrate may, if he or she thinks fit, order at any stage of the inquiry into or trial of any particular case that the public generally or any particular person shall not have access to or be or remain in the room or building used by the court.

(2)In particular, the court shall, when conducting a trial of the offence of defilement, consider the need, in the interest of the child, to exercise its power under Article 28(2) of the Constitution, to exclude the press and the public from the proceedings before the court for reasons of morality and to protect the victim of the offence.

(3)Any magistrate’s court for the purpose of inquiring into or trying any offence may sit on a Sunday or a public holiday, and no finding, sentence or order made or passed by a court of competent jurisdiction shall be reversed or altered only by reason of the fact that it was made or passed on a Sunday or a public holiday; but the court shall not sit on a Sunday or a public holiday unless, in the opinion of the court, the omission to do so would cause an amount of delay, expense or inconvenience which in the circumstances of the case would be unreasonable.