Camera [fr. kam'pa, Gk.], the judge's chamber in Serjeants' Inn, Ken. Glos.
--means room, chamber, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn.
The judge's private room behind the court.
A trial is said to take place in camera when the public are excluded from the court.
No criminal trial can take place in camera. Certain kinds of civil actions in the Chancery Division are heard in camera, e.g., cases concerning secret processes of manufacture.
It has recently been decided (contrary to what was commonly supposed to be the law) that no nullity suit or other matrimonial cause, whatever its nature, can be heard in camera unless justice cannot otherwise be administered; see Scott v. Scott, 1913 AC 417, where the whole question of hearings in camera is discussed at length by the House of Lords.
In a trial under the (English) Official Secrets Act, by the 1920 Act (10 & 11 Geo. 5, c. 75), s. 8, the public maybe excluded during part of the hearing (in certain cases) but the verdict must be pronounced in public.
By the (English) Children and Young Persons Act, 1933 (23 & 24 Geo. 5, c. 12), s. 37, the judge is empowered to clear the court while a child or young person is giving evidence in the case of an offence against decency or morality, and all persons may be excluded except officers of the Court, parties, counsel, or certain newspaper representatives. And see JUVENILE COURTS.
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