Rural Justice

This fascinating article tells us:

People in all societies have disputes. In advanced legal systems the dominant approach to resolving them has been to instruct lawyers and appear before courts. But with the internet, advanced hardware and cutting-edge software coming on-stream, the days of fetching up in front of a judge with bulging case-files are beginning to change – though rather faster in some parts of the world than others.

Professor Richard Susskind, IT adviser to the UK lord chief justice, argues that there are four compelling reasons why courts should explore the emerging digital possibilities. “The system is costly for users; it’s usually too time consuming and disputes take a long time to resolve; it’s largely unintelligible; and it also seems out of step in the internet society,” he says. “Citizens have a growing expectation that services will be delivered digitally.”

The most visible problem – piles of paperwork that are hard to reference and often even harder for the parties to access – has now been solved in the higher criminal courts in England and Wales, which completed the transition to fully digitised evidence files in April 2016. Civil courts in England and Wales, however, have not yet made that leap, and though a government consultation is being held (pdf) on an fundamental rethink of how civil justice is delivered, many other countries are far further ahead with their e-justice revolution.

I suggest you reflect on it alongside Jessica’s recent “rural words” piece on the emerging justice desert in rural areas – here