Full Fact: “Open justice in this century must mean more than merely being able to walk into the courtroom”

jtownend — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 09:30:03 +0000

Full Fact is a non-profit fact-checking organisation based in the UK, which has given oral and written evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Part of its submission on ‘The internet and the Inquiry’ [PDF] concerns access to judicial information, which Full Fact has kindly given me permission to reproduce here, as a contribution to an ongoing discussion at the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism (the ‘Open Justice in the Digital Era’ project, http://bit.ly/openjustice). Full Fact’s full Leveson submission can be found here.

Full Fact: Access to public platforms – an opportunity

One of the effects of the new found ease of access to public platforms has been that certain public bodies have been able to throw open their work to the public.

Parliament, particularly with Hansard and broadcasting (and the independent TheyWorkForYou.com for text and BBC Democracy Live for video)
Legislation.gov.uk
Government, which publishes everything from white papers to press releases and transcripts of press conferences
Office for National Statistics and official statistics producers generally
Academic research is increasingly freely available online
The Supreme Court, with video, judgments and its exemplary press summaries of judgments

The decline of court reporting has long been lamented. It has been rued repeatedly during the Inquiry. Through our work we understand why, and what a gap is being left as this staple journalism declines. Nonetheless, it is not coming back. It is therefore essential that the rest of the court system, and particularly the criminal courts, stop being the glaring exception and start to follow the examples given above.

Factchecking sentencing remarks is currently all but impossible even when they become a subject of national controversy. Several papers recently ran stories like ‘Muslim women not used to drinking walk free after attack on woman’. It was an eye-catching claim that we wanted to factcheck (see: FullFact 2011)

Unfortunately, the judiciary was unwilling or incapable of commenting on the reported version of events, or on what was said by the judge in his sentencing remarks. Sentencing is constantly under heavy scrutiny and criticism and it seems to us that sentencing remarks should be recorded and published online. That would not replace traditional court reporting but it would improve on the growing vacuum in this area. Open justice in this century must mean more than merely being able to walk into the courtroom.

The more direct access to official sources is made easy, the greater the social pressure for good journalism. Moreover, having official and primary sources available online provides a foundation from which assessable and trustworthy journalism can be built up.

Source: Full Fact 2012, p. 7-8 [PDF]. Format altered and emphasis added in this post.

New event: Justice Wide Open – legal knowledge in the digital era

jtownend — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:34:24 +0000

For some time, I’ve been longing to set up an event around the theme of digital open justice. So I’m very excited to announce that the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism will be hosting ‘Justice Wide Open’ on Wednesday 29 February 2012 at City University London from 9am-2pm. It’s free to attend but registration is required.

Geoffrey Robertson QC will open the event with a talk on ‘Alphabet Soup and the judicial retreat from open justice’. Three sessions will cover the history and context of the flow of legal knowledge; legal reporting and the media; and an academic perspective on open justice.

Speakers include: Hugh Tomlinson QC, Matrix Chambers; Dr David Goldberg, information rights academic and activist; Emily Allbon, law librarian, City Law School; Heather Brooke, journalist and activist; Mike Dodd, editor of PA Media Lawyer; Adam Wagner, barrister, One Crown Office Row and editor of the UK Human Rights Blog; William Perrin, founder, Talk About Local and member of the Crime and Justice Sector Panel on Transparency; Professor Ian Cram, Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law, University of Leeds; Dr Lawrence McNamara, Reader in Law and ESRC/AHRC Research Fellow, University of Reading.

Other participants will include practitioners and academics from journalism and law and there will be plenty of time for discussion during the sessions. The final session will allow us to consider the way forward for digital open justice, with view to setting out some general recommendations to the Ministry of Justice and other relevant bodies or committees.

Lawyers will be able to claim three [SRA] CPD points (I’ll have to find some star stickers or merits for the journalists and academics). And the CLJJ will be providing plenty of tea, coffee and lunch. Places are limited so you will need to register here.

For those in another country, or unable to attend, reports from the event will be available on the CLJJ blog. A set of papers will be published following the event, which will be distributed to academics, lawyers, journalists and members of government and the judiciary.

Hope to see you on the 29th February!

Pic: Ben Zvan on Flickr.

Media law and ethics » justice and journalism

Full Fact: “Open justice in this century must mean more than merely being able to walk into the courtroom”

Full Fact: Access to public platforms – an opportunity

New event: Justice Wide Open – legal knowledge in the digital era