Here’s a spot of philosophy to keep you going during this tortuous four-day week: if a judge speaks but there’s nobody in his courtroom, does he still make a sound?

I ask because there are an awful lot of courtrooms now where the press bench is as empty as a polling station on AV referendum day.

Newspapers are being stripped back to the brickwork, with just the basic foundations - a skeleton staff – propping them up.

Court reporting, often unpredictable and time-consuming, is always going to suffer when journalists can be of more immediate use chained to their desk.

The result is a worry for a host of reasons.

For the public, justice has to be seen to be done, whether it’s for the benefit of the rubber-necking voyeur wanting to see their neighbour’s dirty laundry, or the community scared rigid by the actions of a ‘nuisance youth’. (note: editors will always use the word ‘youth’ in a negative context, saving ‘young person’ for the bob-a-job scout or teenage protégé.)

Lawyers need journalists alongside them to further their own careers – this is a chance to get their name in the paper and essentially establish some free advertising if their case goes well.

Most of all, empty press benches mean a lack of accountability and openness, creating a platform for abuse of the system.

‘The ability of a free press to inform the public of what happens in our courts is a bulwark against oppression and the maladministration of justice,’ says Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists.

‘Cutbacks in the media have had a serious effect on the extent of court coverage, particularly at local and regional level.’

There are few easy solutions.

Police, court officials and even lawyers have a role to play in informing newspapers when worthy cases are coming up.

However, the recent example of a Midlands police force tweeting court outcomes might be a cause for concern – after all, the law enforcers should not become the main source of information about the outcome of cases.

One bright spot remains the presence of agency reporters.

One of the country’s biggest agencies, Strand News, faced a crisis two years ago when it wrote to newspaper editors asking them for more work and prompt payments.

The company has since seen revenue from local papers fall, but the BBC and the nationals are reliable customers and have helped to keep a full quota of reporters in the Royal Court of Justice.

Strand editor James Brewster is optimistic for the future and naturally believes there must always be press coverage of court cases.

‘If there are no reporters sitting on press benches, judges might as well be speaking to a vacuum and one of the three arms of democratic government will have almost no voice.

‘I don’t think senior lawyers move onto the bench in order to disappear entirely from public view.

‘Important judicial statements, and the creation of judge-made law, happen on a daily basis and publicity is an essential part of that process.

‘The decline in court reporting across the country may not be immediately apparent to the public, but the repercussions are being felt, and in democratic terms it’s a disaster.’