University:
University College London
Course:
LAWS0006 | Public Law
Academic year:

2024
Views:

337

Pages:

2
Author:

Nam B.

The Limits of Open Justice, The Promise and Perils of Online Judgments Presented by: Mr. Zoe Date: March 16, 2024 Background - - - Justice system the subject of many reforms • Process by which claims are launched • Process by which claims are adjudicated • Process by which outcomes are reported A priori uncertain what the "net" effect on access to justice is • Heterogeneous effects across claimants • Potential for unintended consequences Thus, utility of reforms is an empirical issue • Access to administrative justice data is patchy and high quality surveys are infrequent Motivation - Employment Tribunal judgments now available freely online • Almost 80,000 decisions uploaded as pdf or text files Nature of Judgment Data - - Unstructured text data • Heterogeneity in format and content • Names and potentially sensitive information • Challenging to process in current structure Even a full set of decisions cannot provide comprehensive account of disputes • Selected subset of cases make it to court • Partial (& potentially distorted) image of law's social existence • Not all judgments - unclear publication process - Has not prevented private companies and researchers from using For Whom? - Should we restrict access to/information in public judgments? • Principle of open justice requires opening of judgements to scrutiny  Only very limited consideration for Art8 Right to Private Life  But not clear what this means in practice  CF key continental jurisdictions: routine anonymization • Reasons for caution  Consider potential abuses and how to avoid them  Creation of new barriers to justice or tools to evade employment law? • Broader legal considerations  Copyright  Data Protection / GDPR Safeguards - Focus on abusive use of personal data of claimants - (Imperfect) existing sources of protection - • Blacklisting Regulations 2010 • Anonymity orders • Data Protection Rules • Equality law Lack of control over inferences drawn from data & decision-making processes that rely upon them - Need further steps to regulate, and open to scrutiny, the process by which the machine-learning systems using various forms of input data are designed, and the process by which the recruitment decisions that make use of those systems are made.