Experts warn UK court digitisation is moving too fast and breaking too many things

Ambitious plans to digitise Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunal Service via a £1bn modernisation programme should be slowed down even further, MPs heard this week. The Ministry of Justice is seeking to cut costs by closing courts and putting services online. That programme is due to be completed in 2023, three years later than …

[davenewman]

Video links

Years ago the research showed that the quality of the video image made a difference. Specifically the quality of the image of the listener. The speaker could react to the body language of the listener, changing what he or she said.

[Wellyboot]

more change coming from technology.

This time it's the lawyers getting the pitchforks out.

[Anonymous Coward]

The court closures which are supposed to have been made possible by putting more services online/digital are causing huge delays in the courts that remain open. I recently had to attend a hearing (as a lawyer) in a County Court where in the last 15 years 3 neighbouring courts have been closed, 2 of them in the last 3 years. The listing officer freely admitted that each courtroom had three times more time allocated to it for hearing on that day than could possibly be heard. Some of that will go with parties that don't attend or cases/applications that settle, but that only nibbles at the edges. Most of the caseload for the day is simply adjourned to another day, and everyone affected has to come back again with all the costs wasted as a result.

Not everything can go online or digital - some decisions do have to be made with the parties before a judge. Not all courts even have the facility for video links, let alone the staff who know how the systems work to get them up and running at the time they are needed.

The problem is that the court service sees it as a success anyway because they are no longer paying a lot of court staff or maintaining the buildings. The inconvenience and cost to court users is irrelevant to them.

They have taken off before the parachutes have been handed out, but they are not the people jumping out of the plane so they don't care.

[Will Godfrey]

Tip of the iceberg

With everything going on-line there will one day be total chaos when a road works gang inadvertently chops though a major fibre that wasn't seen by their old cable detector.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Tip of the iceberg

I remember a self employed AT&T line repair contractor remarking that for them the "backhoe incident" was something devoutly to be wished for.

[MachDiamond]

Privacy

Anything online is hackable. This is even more the case when the data is being held by a non-TLA government agency that has a dedicated full time staff looking for incursions. Names and addresses of witnesses could lead to hazing or worse. Minor's names and identifying information is kept secret but could leak. As convictions for minors is often deleted or sealed, having that data leak out could follow somebody around for the rest of their life even if they have turned themselves around.

Since most lawyers are trogs, paper is often still king and the few that are more up to date access case information stored on a tablet or laptop. Courts are often the same so a hearing doesn't come to a grinding halt if the internet is down. As long as the lights are on, testimony and arguments can still be heard. Given the congestion in nearly every court, any stoppage is serious.

Video can be useful when an expert is called on to give testimony, but courts used to only allow that when the expert is some distance away and the case is very serious. It's not a good substitute for having everybody involved in one room whenever possible. Non-verbal communication is important. I think we've all run into misunderstandings trying to do things through email or text. Facial expressions and the waving of hands can turn the meaning of spoken words around 180 degrees.

Something as important as the legal system that has evolved over hundreds of years show only be changed at a very slow pace. To be safe and fair, it also needs to be very secure. It's often seen that the mere accusation of a crime, especially involving children or sex, is taken as a conviction in the public eye. If one is exonerated, it is hoped that the case is sealed. If you were accused of rape by a vindictive ex and found not guilty, the last thing you want is for the charge to show up in a Big Data report on you that a future employer will see causing them to drop your resume in the rubbish bin. I hold a very low opinion of most of the personal info companies and expect they may be more than happy to source tidbits for their files from not-so-mainstream sources such as hacked files sold on the dark web. Court files could be a gold mine for this sort of thing.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Privacy

@MachDiamond: Thanks for putting those thoughts out there. I have recently been developing some very similar ideas, and you have helped to crystallise some.

On a slightly different note - the attacks on access to justice over the last decade or so (closing courts, reducing legal aid) are a significant attack on the ordinary people of the country. There was no need for it, so it was clearly deliberate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Confused PHBs unable to express what they want

"The problem is that they are taking one thing and assuming they are going to do it. Then they are moving video into civil and so on".

What - if anything - is that supposed to mean?

If the clarity of the requirements are anything like the clarity of that snippet, it's no wonder the projects are chaotic.

[dnicholas]

Re: Confused PHBs unable to express what they want

Exactly. Everything has to be digital, because, progress! Was there a cost/benefit analysis done before the purse was prised open?

[John Smith 19]

"three times more time allocated to it for hearing on that day than could possibly be heard."

Also AIUI a popular tactic with the British NHS outpatient clinics.

A British friend was scheduled for one at 9am.

Never saw a consultant before 2pm.

Day totally wasted.

AFAIK this is about closing courts --> reduces costs and basically nothing else.

[Doctor Syntax]

"three times more time allocated to it for hearing on that day than could possibly be heard."

I can't remember when that didn't apply to courts. That and, with long running cases, expecting witnesses to turn up whether there was any chance of them being taken that day or not.

[Lusty]

Digitise

The word you're looking for is digitalise, not digitise. Digitise is scanning a document to make a digital copy. Digitalise is making an electronic form so that there never was a paper copy to digitise. There's a world of difference in the value offered by these things so it's important to understand the difference.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its about conveyor belt justice, cheap to run - with little regard for the defendant.

Taken together with the restrictions on Legal Aid, both in terms of scope and the choice of practices available it shows the scant regard the elites have for the "lower orders". Of course we can still easily afford legal aid for wealthy fraudsters etc.

With the social engineering going on in many City neighbourhoods and the tampering with the legal system I wonder how far we are away from a "Judge Dredd" scenario, where there will be daily unrest and "justice" metered out on the spot bypassing the court system altogether, indeed we are part way there already with more and more "on the spot fines".

[Intractable Potsherd]

Hear, hear! This is a deliberate attack on the populace. Sometimes it feels as if TPTB are expecting a revolution soon, and are gaming the system accordingly.

[TrumpSlurp the Troll]

Good news and bad news.

We are running two closely coupled projects.

New digital services will free off time and resource and streamline the system.

In parallel the new efficiencies will enable the phased closure of outdated facilities.

The bad news is that the new services are running late and significantly over budget.

The good news is that the phased closures are slightly ahead of schedule.