Online Court Research Articles

Information Technologies in Fixing the Evidence in Court

The paper aims to analyze modern combined methods of fixing evidence at the stage of the trial in the criminal process in Russia. For this, the following objectives were defined: to analyze foreign criminal practice, to indicate the shortcomings and prospects for digital technologies implementation in Russian court practice, to compare foreign and Russian legislation relative to the use of information technologies during investigation and proceedings stages, and to develop recommendations. Research methods combine theoretical (comparative and legal) analysis of Russian and foreign legislation were used together with empirical ones (data analysis of the judicial practice cases).Findings: generally accepted forms of conducting criminal proceedings are complicating (online court sessions broadcasting, electronic documents compilation and information storage, combining methods of fixing evidence at various stages of criminal justice). Preserving the written form of keeping the record of a court session, and providing that information and technological means of fixing (video recording and audio protocolling) are necessary. The use of ubiquitous audio or video recording of investigative actions on the one hand will help to avoid numerous procedural mistakes in pre-trial proceedings, providing certain guarantees for the rights of participants in criminal proceedings. The authors propose to supplement Russian criminal procedure legislation and other countries with a number of norms, according to which it is necessary to introduce information fixation means in courts – audio recording or video recording at the trial stage. These means should be used by the court at the request of a defendant and (or) one’s defense counsel.

Moving on from a judicial preference for mediation to embed appropriate dispute resolution

This paper critically considers judicial approaches to and promotion of mediation within the English civil justice system. It argues that the overzealous judicial emphasis on mediation in the ADR jurisprudence has restricted the wider concepts of ADR and ‘dispute resolution’ which in turn has created what the author terms ‘judicial mediation bias’. The paper critically explores these issues through an analysis of the ADR jurisprudence, with a focus on key Court of Appeal ADR authorities, and successive civil justice reforms. The paper makes proposals for reform, including the potential use of stages one and two of Lord Justice Briggs’ online court to promote a greater application of a variety of ADR procedures, in particular, judicial early neutral evaluation and collaborative dispute resolution.

Examining malpractice in the education context

Malpractice is a dereliction of professional duty or a failure to exercise an ordinary degree of professional skill or learning by rendering professional services which results in injury, loss or damage. This study probed into the questions: (2)what are the types of educational malpractices in the Philippine education system; and (2) who are mostly guilty of these offenses? Data were gathered by downloading court cases and newspaper articles. A total of ten online court cases involving teachers, parents, students, school administrators, and principals were included. Coding was done by identifying the emerging themes per cluster. Findings indicated that offenses can be clustered into two: corruption and misconduct. Corruption cluster includes offenses ranging from illegal collection by the teachers from the students to the misuse of funds by the school administrators. On the other hand, the misconduct cluster includes sexual abuse targeted towards students by the teachers, and abuse of power by the school administrators towards the teachers. Data revealed that some cases involving principals whose offenses include misuse of funds and abuse of power were dismissed. Furthermore, involvement of principals was under-reported due to certain interfering reasons like fear, doubt or hesitation, or carelessness on the part of those who file the cases or as a result of the misleading or scheming practices of the offenders. On the other hand, abuses and minor offenses committed by the teachers were magnified. Among the teachers charged of malpractice in education, only one was found not guilty. This led to the creation of a typology that highlights the forms of offenses, the offenders and the offended as well as the results of the investigation of the cases. . Comparatively speaking, this may be attributed to the lack of power, authority and influence teachers have against principals and other school administrators.

The role of the English courts in alternative dispute resolution

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to examine the interaction between the court and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the legal administration of civil justice. It addresses the following questions. What is the relationship between ADR and the concept of justice? How do we make sense of the anti-ADR views, in particular the serious threat to the rule of law? What role does, and should, the court play in alternative processes? It argues that integrating ADR into the court system broadens the notion of justice and its access, and that, under the rule of law, judges should play a more central role to ensure the use, quality and integrity of alternative processes. This paper extends our understanding of the relationship among justice, ADR and the court from an internal perspective. It also points out the need to expand the case management responsibilities of judges, and their delegates in the Online Court, on ADR.

The drive for virtual (online) courts and the failure to consider obligations to combat human trafficking – A short note of concern on identification, protection and privacy of victims.

This article examines the introduction of virtual (online) court systems being introduced in parts of the UK in the particular context of human trafficking victims.The justice system in England and Wales is undergoing significant transformation through the use of technology, under a drive for efficiency. The authors argue that online court systems are being implemented without investment into appropriate legal research and with assumptions regarding the approval process, and questions the effect of virtual hearings on the fundamental principles of due process. Whilst identifying vulnerability has been the subject of guidance, it remains unclear how these courts will deal with human trafficking issues. Human trafficking is a highly lucrative industry that extends to all corners of the globe and international as well as UK protocols and legislation exist with the objective to protect and assist the victims of human trafficking, with full respect for their human rights, ensuring a victim-centred approach. The protection of personal data and privacy of all online court users is important; however, trafficked persons belong a particularly vulnerable group, and the protection of their personal data is critical in alleviating the risk of further harm, intimidation, retaliation, or inappropriate use of biometric data.In conclusion, the authors argue that technological solutions to inefficiency have been given priority over justice solutions and just outcomes, without addressing systemic issues in the context of human trafficking.An Online Court…is not, incidentally, (as some press reports have suggested) intended to be a court without judges, or a court where matters in dispute are to be determined automatically by some algorithm embedded in a computer, or by a civil servant. But it is a court where the basic problem facing ordinary people, namely turning their heart-felt grievances into something formulated in legal terms, and enabling them to identify and present their documentary and other evidence, is capable of being addressed electronically and cheaply, so that both their opponents know the case to be met, and the court is equipped at the earliest possible stage with the materials necessary to decide it justly. This statement is from Briggs LJ Addressing the Bar of England and Wales on the use of online courts in 2016.22Briggs LJ The Online Court Counsel Magazine April 2016 〈https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/the-online-court〉Whilst this is a hopeful description of what technology can do for the justice system, this paper seeks to show that perhaps our enthusiasm ought to be restrained until we answer key questions. The authors explore these questions using the example of victims of human trafficking. These persons engage with the justice system in a variety of ways. Some are witnesses to trafficking crimes in a criminal prosecution. Others may themselves be on trial for crimes they were compelled to commit as a result of their trafficking situation. Additionally, they can be party to a civil case, e.g., arising out of an employment situation. In each of these cases there is possibility for the victim to be identified, if they are not already, as somebody who has a right to assistance and support. There is an opportunity for the state to carry out an identification and thus, as explained in this paper, fulfil human rights obligations. What happens when cases go online? There are also serious questions with regard to privacy and data protection and how the implementation of online court processes may act as a barrier to identifying victims of human trafficking. The authors, therefore, advocate for great caution to be used with the introduction of virtual justice and call for additional research to be undertaken in order to gain a clear vision of what the current and future effects of this new system may be.

Performance and image enhancing drug (PIED) producers and suppliers: a retrospective content analysis of PIED-provider cases in Australia from 2010-2016

Traditionally policymakers have paid little attention to the consumption of steroids and other performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) in Australia. Yet, in recent times PIEDs have come to occupy an increasing amount of discursive space and, indeed, regulatory action. This newfound interest may be attributed to several broader developments, not least the perception of the involvement of organized crime in distributing PIEDs to the professional sports world and other sectors of this illicit market. This paper seeks to explore the empirical reality of the claim that the production and supply of PIEDs in Australia is the prerogative of organized crime groups. A retrospective content analysis of Australian PIED provider cases was conducted between 2010 and 2016. To widen our search, both media articles describing court cases, obtained from the Factiva database, and public online court records, using the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) database, were searched. Search terms included “steroid*”, “doping” and “testosterone” in combination with the terms “traffic*”, “production”, “supply*” and “import*”. In total, 477 PIED provider cases were identified yet most cases were duplicates, irrelevant or lacked sufficient detail, resulting in a final dataset of 144 cases. A coding schedule was developed based on existing PIED supply literature. Our data shows that most PIED provider cases took place in Queensland (41.7%), followed by New South Wales (25%) and Victoria (13.2%). Regarding the type of providers, the largest group consisted of people active in the gym industry (22%), followed by the healthcare sector (17%), the ‘other’ category (12%) and the security sphere (8%). Of the 144 steroid-provider cases, only 12% of the cases indicated the potential involvement of organized crime groups, with half of those being linked to outlaw motorcycle gangs. In contrast to the claims of authorities, our data suggests that organized crime groups currently play a proportionally small role in the illicit production and supply of steroids and other performance and image enhancing drugs in Australia. Indeed, various actors are involved of which only a small fraction are part of or involved with organized crime groups. Many suppliers are particularly active in the gym industry and healthcare sector. The relative presence of such suppliers has important policy implications, not least with regard to the role of criminal law in addressing the provision of PIEDs.

Transparency, Data Protection and the Law Courts of the Future

AbstractThis article by Paul Magrath examines the tensions between data protection and transparency in the context of a long overdue digital revolution in the courts of England and Wales. Many traditional hearings are being replaced by virtual or video-conference type hearings, and may in time be dealt with by an online court. There are concerns that open justice may suffer. Yet any attempt to remedy this with more transparent scrutiny of court information will need to conform to the stricter data protection regime under GDPR as well as respecting the privacy of litigants and the presumption of innocence. The author is Head of Product Development and Online Content with ICLR and a trustee of the Transparency Project.

Assessing Access-to-Justice Outreach Strategies

The need for prospective beneficiaries to “take up” new programs is a common stumbling block for otherwise well-designed legal and policy innovations. I examine the take-up problem in the context of publicly provided court services and test the effectiveness of various outreach strategies that announce a newly available online court access platform. I study individuals with minor arrest warrants whose distrust of courts may dampen any take-up response. I partnered with a court to quasi-randomly assign outreach approaches to a cohort of individuals and find that outreach improves take-up, that the type of outreach matters, and that online platform access is itself effective.

Assessing Access-to-Justice Outreach Strategies

The need for prospective beneficiaries to take up new programs is a common stumbling block for otherwise well-designed legal and policy innovations. I examine the take-up problem in the context of publicly provided court services and test the effectiveness of various outreach strategies that announce a newly available online court access platform. I study individuals with minor arrest warrants whose distrust of courts may dampen any take-up response. I partnered with a court to quasi-randomly assign outreach approaches to a cohort of individuals and find that outreach improves take-up, that the type of outreach matters, and that online platform access is itself effective.

Online Court Sign in Board for Sports Complex

Online Court Sign in Board for Sports Complex

EAccess to Justice (Introduction)

Part I of this work focuses on the ways in which digitization projects can affect fundamental justice principles. It examines claims that technology will improve justice system efficiency and offers a model for evaluating e-justice systems that incorporates a broader range of justice system values. The emphasis is on the complicated relationship between privacy and transparency in making court records and decisions available online. Part II examines the implementation of technologies in the justice system and the challenges it comes with, focusing on four different technologies: online court information systems, e-filing, videoconferencing, and tablets for presentation and review of evidence by jurors. The authors share a measuring enthusiasm for technological advances in the courts, emphasizing that these technologies should be implemented with care to ensure the best possible outcome for access to a fair and effective justice system. Finally, Part III adopts the standpoints of sociology, political theory and legal theory to explore the complex web of values, norms, and practices that support our systems of justice, the reasons for their well-established resistance to change, and the avenues and prospects of eAccess. The chapters in this section provide a unique and valuable framework for thinking with the required sophistication about legal change.

Chinese judicial justice on the cloud: a future call or a Pandora’s box? An analysis of the ‘intelligent court system’ of China

The incorporation of information and communication technology as part of the process of Chinese judicial reform has appeal to both legislators and policy-makers who focus on its positive features. The launch of the ‘intelligent court system’ represents part of this process to equip the judiciary with the most up-to-date modern technology that aims to reshape case resolution procedure by way of moving the legal process online. The central aspect of this is to establish an online case resolution process through an ‘e-court’ or ‘online court’, which will shift the judicial process towards working within the expectation of modern commercial practice and technological capacity. However, the realisation of the ideals underlining the project is not without problems. An examination of the two different models introduced for the pilot e-court system, indicates that insufficient consideration has been given with regards to its potential adverse effects and that more thought needs to be given to how these issues should be addressed in order to improve the role and function of online courts in China.

Digitally Produced Judgements in Modern Court Proceedings

This paper shows an improvement of legal decision-making via digitally produced verdicts. We investigate the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in relation to rendering arbitrational verdicts. The data was provided by e-Court, the first private online court of the Netherlands. In our survey the standard debt collection proceedings under Dutch Civil and Procedural law are used as a case study. The introduction of the subject matter is followed by an overview of the key-parameters required by e-Court for rendering a verdict in default cases. The reasoning methodologies of Intelligent Systems in the legal domain are then discussed. Following this discussion, we will analyze the nature of the e-Court System to understand how it benefits from the various types of Intelligent Systems. Subsequently, we will discuss the rationale behind the choices made, the legal implications and the handling process within the public courts. We review in brief some expectations about the further developments and compare them with the current best practices at the Dutch e-Court. Our contribution lies also in the investigation of the characteristics of the e-Court system for rendering default verdicts in debt collection proceedings. In our conclusion we will consider to what extent intelligent systems will be used in the contemporary digital court houses.

Revolutionising the Civil Courts in South Africa Through Information Technology

A consultative approach was undertaken by a handful of academics in assessing the information technology of court systems from a global perspective inter alia southern hemisphere countries to European trends, which resulted in academics writing critically about this process in revolutionising the case management process and technology. Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng of the Constitutional Court in South Africa remarked that the e-filing system was required to address some of the problems that judicial officers face in hearing appeals when dockets are lost in their entirety. In this specific context there is needed reform for the case management structure of matters that appear on the court roll. The time delay in transcribing records for Judges/Magistrates to access the evidence for writing their judgments inevitably creates backlogs of judgments only being delivered eight months after the trial. This is unfavourable for the litigants that have their matter unduly delayed and causes an incremental rise in litigation fees. A possible solution is for the technology that enables and allows for ‘real-time transcript,’ which ensures that when evidence is given in court it is automatically transcribed. This means that the Judge/Magistrate has immediate visual access to it on the computer. This particular technology could save costs and allow for accurate information to be given to the Judge/Magistrate for faster digestion of the matter before them. The paper-based system perpetuates that copious amounts of pages are filed at court. An environmental lawyer’s worst nightmare of seeing so many pages that have to be printed instead of referring to a ‘soft’ copy. To a litigants aghast, after the very tedious process of paginating the court files and their own files and on the day of the trial/application the court file goes walkabout. The result is that it is impossible for the matter to proceed on the same day, accordingly the trial is postponed to locate the file and the originals alternatively for the respective litigants to file the necessary copies to ensure that the matter can proceed with a copied file for a civil dispute. However from a criminal perspective when the docket is lost, then the case is postponed for the location of the docket and if it cannot be found then the matter is removed from the roll, until it can be found and then the matter will then be re-enrolled on the court roll, sometimes matters take years to re-appear if at all. The result sadly is that when documents go missing that criminals are released into society once again. European countries have adopted e-Courts that function on an online basis where witnesses can attest to evidence through online mediums akin to skype. In the Southern Hemisphere countries such as Singapore and Australia have some of the most advanced Information Technology systems such as e-filing systems and video conferencing are some of the developments that contribute to the ‘dawn of a new era of cybercourts.’ Australia had initially developed the online court system for matters that were ‘complex’ but then a particular necessity for it evolved and as a result at least one permanent cyber court sits in each court. Another reason for using information technology in Australia was to ease the backlog of a paper-based system. The trends in technology is not only to revolutionise business and marketing but also has its place in court. Advanced technology usually sums up convenience and especially in the struggle for access to justice ‘convenience’ is a fad that can address access to justice. A major drawback of information technology is that it is an expensive system, but surely government may address the cost concern if it weighs the successes of the system to paper-based outdated systems. In Singapore the courts have converted to an electronic litigation system, meaning every iota of the litigation is computerised. This paper shall only deal with an analysis of the court online system to revolutionise the civil system within a South African context.

Race, law, and health: Examination of ‘Stand Your Ground’ and defendant convictions in Florida

Previous analyses of Stand Your Ground (SYG) cases have been primarily descriptive. We examine the relationship between race of the victim and conviction of the defendant in SYG cases in Florida from 2005 to 2013. Using a regression analytic approach, we allow for simultaneous examination of multiple factors to better understand existing interrelationships. Data was obtained from the Tampa Bay Times SYG database (237 cases) which was supplemented with available online court documents and/or news reports. After excluding cases which were, still pending as of January 2015; had multiple outcomes (because of multiple suspects); and missing information on race of victim and weapon of victim, our final analytic sample has 204 cases. We chose whether the case resulted in a conviction as the outcome. We develop logistic regression models using significant bivariate predictors as candidates. These include race of the victim (White, non-White), whether the defendant could have retreated from the situation, whether the defendant pursued the victim, if the victim was unarmed, and who was the initiator of the confrontation. We find race of the victim to be a significant predictor of case outcome in this data set. After controlling for other variables, the defendant is two times (OR = 2.1, 95% CI [1.07, 4.10]) more likely to be convicted in a case that involves White victims compared to those involving non-White victims. Our results depict a disturbing message: SYG legislation in Florida has a quantifiable racial bias that reveals a leniency in convictions if the victim is non-White, which provides evidence towards unequal treatment under the law. Rather than attempting to hide the outcomes of these laws, as was done in Florida, other states with SYG laws should carry out similar analyses to see if their manifestations are the same as those in Florida, and all should remediate any injustices found.

The Online Court

The Online Court

The Online Court

The Online Court

Homeowners' activism and the rule of law in urban China

Despite the anticipation that the legal system would be able to offer a civilized and institutionalized means in settling the infringement of homeowners' property and consumer rights, empirical evidence has instead indicated a decline in the employment of litigation in dispute resolution. This paper attempts to examine the complex interaction between the rule of law and homeowner activism in upholding their rights. Information on property related litigation was collected from online court rulings in Shanghai which is supplemented with in-depth interviews with homeowner activists who were involved in litigation. In this paper, the rule of law in China is analysed within a wider socio-political context of neighbourhood governance and the emerging civil society. Despite the inadequacy in the legal system in protecting homeowners' rights, empirical evidence has shown that homeowner activists have explored the legal system, not just as a means of redress but also to employ creatively as part of their action strategy in settling their problems outside the court.

Serving Transparency and Privacy in Online Court Records: A Framework for Tailoring Access Rules

Serving Transparency and Privacy in Online Court Records: A Framework for Tailoring Access Rules

Assessing Legal Strains and Risk of Suicide Using Archived Court Data

Relatively little is known about legal entanglements and suicide risk. This matched case-control study estimated the risk of suicide associated with legal strains using online court archives, a novel source of exposure data. Court records linked to suicide deaths (N = 315), controls (N = 630), and unintentional injury and poisoning deaths (N = 630) for an urban county from 2000 to 2005 revealed that nearly a third of suicide victims had recent court involvement, twice the proportion among controls. Misdemeanors, car accidents, and foreclosures were each associated with a threefold risk of suicide. Implications for suicide prevention and research are discussed.