But an incidental digital (and Google) record around court proceedings is being created nonetheless: when a blogger quotes or reproduces part of a judgment, in newspaper reports, on Twitter and so on.  Information that is available in open court – such as a defendant’s personal details – often (and legitimately) makes its way online.

Would it be better to have a complete record noting the outcome of the case, or leave it to this current state of play, where it’s a matter of chance whether a digital record gets created, often left incomplete? There are numerous complaints to the PCC where a newspaper has only partially reported a case, for example.

There needs to be proper consideration of what type of information should be part of a digital courts record, and how it should be released, as this recent example brought to my attention by Richard Taylor, shows.

He put in a freedom of information request for his local Magistrates’ court lists and was pleased that it resulted in its release in a “reasonably timely manner” (6 days).

But, of rather more concern, Taylor believes the list contained material that would be illegal to publish and so he has redacted the record, and removed it from WhatDoTheyKnow.com.

As a result of his request he has published “example court lists in full for selected upcoming sittings to be held at Cambridge Magistrates Courts, as well as further selected individual listed items in full“, which may be “the first time this has been done“.

In regards to the responsible – and legal – release of information, he says:

If the Courts and the Tribunals Service had a responsibility to remove such information prior to releasing the information is an interesting question. This is information anyone can obtain either by making the same freedom of information request I did, or by turning up to the court and asking for a copy of the court list on the day of the hearing, or indeed by sitting in the court and hearing the charges being read out…

To be continued. I’m hoping that other legal bloggers might add their views on the questions raised by Richard Taylor’s post…

More digital open justice reading:

• Open Justice in the Digital Era project: http://bit.ly/openjustice
• Emily Goodhand: ‘Who owns the copyright on barristers’ advocacy?’

Update here (11.02.13).

Ignorance is no defence, but given that Starmer suggested that a leading QC hadn’t thought about the sophistication of the issues (a charge which the lawyer in question is robustly defending – on Twitter, of course), what hope for the public at large?

I’ve been interested in the idea of public legal education (PLE) for social media users for a while (see my blogger project in 2010, for example) – initially around civil law (defamation, privacy, contempt) and more recently, criminal offences (Malicious Communications Act 1988; Communications Act 2003; Contempt of Court Act 1981).

The court order issue, mentioned on Radio 4 this morning, is the really interesting one for me. In 2010, I wrote about the lack of clarity around blogging and reporting restrictions; the situation hasn’t much improved since then, although people are probably more aware of the risks through increased media discussion.

Jon Harman (@colmmu) is also interested in this area, and has posted some quick thoughts on his Tumblr blog:

On one hand whilst “ignorance” is not a defence, do we have an education system currently capable of raising digital literacy and the laws that relate to it, do we need to do more in public legal education or even state education given that most people do not actively seek to break these laws, they are just unaware? When we had restricted systems of publishing we had mechanisms to filter and check, we had the basis of journalism training wedded to media and publishing laws – but that’s not possible in this new landscape

His suggestion? A legal Siri … Read in full here.