When must a court official keep a written record of a hearing, and when may that record instead be written after the hearing has ended?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In the practice file, the hearing record itself matters most: it shows whether a court official was present and wrote it as the hearing went on, and it shows any note that it was written afterwards. Where the arguments were recorded or stenographed, that recording or transcript is read alongside the record, since the proviso ties the official's omission to it.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading takes the first paragraph as the baseline: a court official takes part in the oral argument hearing and writes a record at every hearing, while the proviso lets the hearing be held without such an official only where the arguments are recorded or stenographed, or other circumstances comparable to those exist. There, after the hearing ends, the official writes the record on the presiding judge's explanation and must also record that this is what was done.
Another reading separates the two routes the provision sets out, because the measures differ. The proviso for an oral argument hearing asks whether the arguments were recorded or stenographed, or whether special circumstances comparable to those exist, whereas the second paragraph rests only on the presiding judge finding an official's presence unnecessary, and reaches hearings other than oral argument and oral preparation hearings.
Your judgment
If a record was written after the hearing on the judge's explanation and no recording survives, how could a party show that it does not match what was said?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to change the circumstances in which an official may be omitted, or if a court decision sets out how the accuracy of a record written after the hearing may be tested.