A US judge denied a lawyer continuance of trial after the latter’s Facebook entry revealed he was absent from court because he was out partying and had not suffered a bereavement as claimed, an International Bar Association (IBA) report on social networking recounts.

Elsewhere, the Supreme Court of South Korea refused to reappoint judges after they posted controversial remarks on a social networking site, while in the UK a juror was jailed for online activity during a trial.

The IBA surveyed 60 law societies and bar associations across 47 jurisdictions to examine the profession’s attitudes to social networking.

More than 90% of respondents said there was a 'need for guidelines’, while almost 95% said jurors should receive 'specific instructions from judges limiting their online communications and use of online social networking sites'.

Vice-chair of the IBA art, cultural institutions and heritage law committee Mark Stephens said that the report was the beginning of a 'big conversation’ that needs to take place at the highest levels. He said: 'The basic principles of openness and justice and fairness that apply to every legal system on the planet must apply in an online world. The bars and law societies are going to have to set the rules and constraints that work for their systems.’