Chapter iv  Right to a Public Hearing 81 for a public hearing, the Committee concluded that there had been a violation of Article 14(1) of the ICCPR.309 Where necessity and proportionality dictate that the press and public should be excluded, the UN ECOSOC’s Siracusa Principles call for this conclusion to be announced in open court.310 4.1.2 Exclusion in the interests of morals A court has the ability to exclude the public and press if their presence during an oral hearing, and the publicity that might follow this, would endanger public morals. 4.1.3 Exclusion in the interests of public order The press and public may be excluded in the interests of public order (also referred to as “ordre public” in the ICCPR). It has been held, for example, that exclusion of the press and public from disciplinary hearings in prison is justifiable, the European Court of Human Rights observing that: “To require that disciplinary proceedings concerning convicted prisoners should be held in public would impose a disproportionate burden on the authorities of the State.”311 In the context of criminal proceedings concerning an accused who was already serving a sentence of imprisonment, however, the Court found that this did not automatically imply that the proceedings should have been relocated from a normal courtroom to the place of the accused’s imprisonment (See also 4.2.2). While security concerns might justify the exclusion of the public from a trial, the Court reiterated in Hummatov v Azerbaijan that this will be rare, noting that security problems are a common feature of many criminal proceedings, and concluded that there were no such security concerns in that case.312 4.1.4 Exclusion in the interests of national security in a democratic society Exclusion of the public from a hearing may occur if this is in the interests of national security in a democratic society. In Kennedy v the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights gave consideration to the holding of hearings in respect of which the public was excluded by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, concerning a complaint that the applicant’s communications were being secretly intercepted in “challengeable circumstances”, within the meaning of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (UK). In order to ensure the efficacy of the secret surveillance regime in question, and bearing in mind the importance of such measures to the fight against terrorism and serious crime in the United Kingdom, the European Court concluded that the restrictions on the applicant’s rights were 309 Touron v Uruguay, HRC Communication 32/1978, UN Doc CCPR/C/OP/1 (1984), para 12. See also: Weisz v Uruguay, HRC Communication 28/1978, UN Doc CCPR/C/OP/1 (1984), para 16; Osman v the United Kingdom [1998] ECHR 101, paras 147–154; Wait and Kennedy v Germany [1999] ECHR 13, paras 59–67; and Asan Rushiti v Turkey [2000] ECHR 106, para 23. 310 UN ECOSOC, Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN Doc E/CN.4/1985/4, Annex (1985), para 38(a). 311 Campbell and Fell v the United Kingdom [1984] ECHR 8, para 87. 312 Hummatov v Azerbaijan [2007] ECHR 1026, para 150.