Why did the Supreme Court announce last week that it was offering what its president, Lord Phillips, describes as ‘a green light to tweeting and other forms of [text-based] communication’?

There have never been any restrictions on sending texts from the Supreme Court or, until recently, from other courts. In recent years, I have often whiled away boring hearings by catching up with emails on my laptop.

What has changed, of course, is Twitter. As Phillips explains, rapid developments in communication bring benefits for the justice system.

One of these, he says, is that ‘regular updates can be shared with many people outside the court, in real time, which can enhance public interest in the progress of a case and keep those who are interested better informed’.

This is true, of course. But the justices would not have issued a jolly press release about ‘tweeting the twists and turns of Supreme Court cases’ if they had not wanted to encourage the use of social networking.

And one reason that the Supreme Court is so keen for outsiders to receive ‘regular updates’ may be that the mainstream media no longer routinely cover hearings in even the country’s highest courts.

A striking illustration of the wider decline in serious journalism is to be found in last weekend’s Sunday Telegraph, which printed just four stories on its front page. Inside was a partial facsimile of its first edition, in 1961, when nearly 20 stories appeared on page 1.

In the courts last week, His Holiness Baba Jeet Singh Ji Maharaj was ordered to produce £250,000 by the end of this month if he wants to continue with his libel claim against Hardeep Singh, a freelance journalist.

The claimant, who is based in India, seems unlikely to comply – his solicitors are without instructions – so the ruling is being seen as a defeat for libel tourism and victory for free speech.

But seen by whom? There was nobody from the national newspapers in the Court of Appeal and the hearing was not covered by the news agencies.

For reports, one has to thank the trade press, campaign groups, bloggers and even the barristers’ chambers that represented the defendant.

And, most significantly of all, some of them reported the result on Twitter – often very quickly indeed.

Now, I well understand that many of the lawyers who take the trouble to read this column will know nothing about Twitter and care even less. As one distinguished QC asked me last week, why should I be interested in hearing what Stephen Fry had for breakfast?

Until last month, I shared that view. Then, dear reader, I signed up to Twitter.

I am now hooked.

As even the judges now know, joining Twitter enables one to send messages to other users. These messages – known as ‘tweets’ – are limited to 140 letters or spaces. My tweets can be read by anyone who looks at my ‘page’ on Twitter. They are also delivered to everyone who chooses to ‘follow’ me.

Although I have done very little to publicise this – I wanted to get the hang of it first – some 200 people currently receive the tweets that I send. Gratifying though this may be, I still have a long way to go before catching up with Stephen Fry’s 2 million followers.

But what strikes me as crucial to the success of Twitter is that it enables users to ‘re-tweet’ messages. If my followers regard one of my tweets as interesting, they can forward it to all their followers.

These people, in turn, can forward it those following them, and so on. Messages can reach large numbers of people at great speed.

This makes Twitter more like a broadcasting service than a glorified email provider. But it is a service that is subject to much lighter controls than traditional broadcasters.

Messages are not pre-monitored and there is little that can be done to stop users from circulating tweets that are offensive, obscene, defamatory, in breach of privacy or even illegal (because, for example, they incite violence).

Twitter promises to withdraw accounts that are misused in this way – but, by then, the damage may have been done.

What, though, is the point of it all? Lawyers may use Twitter as a marketing tool. For me, though, the main purpose is to alert readers whenever I publish a news story or column. In 140 characters I can include little more than a headline and a (compressed) link to the web page on which the piece appears.

But it is the very brevity of the tweet that encourages readers to glance at it and click through to the article if it interests them. Of course, the Gazette has its own Twitter feed. But not everything I write appears here.

A secondary purpose for me is to alert readers to breaking legal news or interesting developments. But I can see little point in doing this unless I have the story to myself or I can add something of value to material that is already in the public domain.

And my final reason for subscribing to Twitter is to take advantage of the news stories and announcements that others tweet.

These appear, in sequence, on one’s computer, BlackBerry, iPhone or other smartphone – or as text messages on older mobiles.

Of course, it’s not just news organisations that tweet. Many primary sources make announcements in this way, including the Ministry of Justice. It won’t be long, I am sure, before the Supreme Court is up there tweeting with the rest of them.