• William Perrin TAL

Communities and the courts, what’s going on? a practitioner perspectiveJustice Wide Open 29 February 2012

William Perrinwilliam@talkaboutlocal.org@willperrin

Talk About Local Ltdhttp://talkaboutlocal.org

Abandoned cars and weekly arsonBingfield Park, Rufford Street 2002 Pics – Mark Bailey

www.kingscrossenvironment.comOver 1500 articlesSix volunteer writers – aged up to 65Campaigns, information, wildlife, events etcStrongly pro community/placeImportant part of wider regeneration 400-500 readers a day

Crime and confidence in justice system major local issue

Highbury Corner busy very local magistrates court

Impossible for a regular citizen to find out what is happening at the court without going there – both the daily listings and the results of justice

Obviously, if you have a day job you can’t keep going there

It’s 2012 – why aren’t listings and results online?

Can journalists readily and reliably get this basic information?

Professional court reporters cite Kafkaesque tales of dysfunctional bureaucracy.

‘There is a widespread view among many court staff that details like defendants’ names, addresses and dates of birth are confidential pieces of information. ‘

-Locked metal boxes- Lists confiscated-Lists only have minority of cases- Lists appearing at end of day concerned not start

Administrative statement by the Chief Presiding Judge and Secretary of State. To give individuals administrative ‘rights’ that they can enforce with court officers

Three simple things:

Forward listings – what’s happening when, charges, published in timely manner

Participant details - names etc of all lawyers, judges, magistrates, victims, witnesses

Results – guilty, not guilty etc

Two principles

Respect all conventions of protection of vulnerable people and contempt

Subject to protection, everything published online to the world, not just the media

Courts Transparency Charter

http://tal.me.uk/c3

Head on collision between uncodified tradition of open justice and badly codified, badly implemented data protection, copyright,

privacy

Join the debate at

http://tal.me.uk/c3

William Perrin

@willperrinwilliam@talkaboutlocal.org