Peter Black's Freedom to Differ

Courts and Twitter

This time last week I was attending a conference at Bond University on The Courts and the Media in the Digital Era (you can download the program here).  I spoke about this conference on my radio segments with Andrew Bartlett and Spencer Howson during the week and you can also read my tweets from the conference here.  The general consensus from the conference seemed to be that live, text-based communications from court were inevitable. 

That said, I do think there is a general relunctance from the courts to embrace new communication technologies, such as Twitter, as as official channel of communication from the court.  And this story from Brazil is only going to reinforce that attitude:

The @STF_Oficial Twitter account, the official account for the Brazilian Supreme Court, tweeted something rather embarrassing on Tuesday: it called for the resignation of the president of the Senate.

Now, this is not the sort of public statement to be taken lightly, nor is the way in which it was presented. The tweet apparently called for 80-year-old Jose Sarney to retire from the Senate, following the lead of soccer star Ronaldo who announced his retirement from the game on Monday.

In a statement issued today on its website, the Supreme Court apologized for the tweet. It claims that the Twitter account was improperly used by a court employee, and has since removed the offending tweet.

As the Associated Press reports, the Court has not identified the employee responsible for the tweet, nor indicated whether or not they had taken disciplinary measures against him or her.

Twitter is a public forum, but even the top Court in a country can forget this at times and post an improper tweet.

Read more here (from AllTwitter).

Technology and the way it frames our world

Every Tuesday morning I have a regular weekly segment on Breakfast with Spencer Howson on 612 ABC Brisbane talking about technology and how it frames our world.  In the segment this week we talked about accidentally sending a text message to the wrong person (like Graham Quirk did last week) and a new app that tries to address that problem, courts and Twitter, one bank's sneaky tweet and punked another bank, and a new app in Boston to fix potholes: 

My weekly chat with Andrew Bartlett on 4ZzZ

Every Monday morning I appear on Andrew Bartlett's 4ZzZ breakfast radio show to discuss some of the current public and political issues of the week.  This morning we discussed the week in federal Parliament (including Tony Abbott's "shit happens" remark and the Government's health deal coming out of COAG), another historic week Egypt as democracy spreads in the Middle East, more developments in online media and courts and the media in the digital era:

The Courts and the Media in the Digital Era

Tomorrow (Saturday 12 February) I am attending a conference at Bond University on The Courts and the Media in the Digital Era.  They have an impressive line up of speakers (you can download the program here) and hopefully I will be able to get in a few questions abouts social media, which has been oddly left out of the conference program.

As you would expect, I will try and live tweet the conference under the hashtag #courtsmedia:

WSJ Law Blog: "Our Tech-Savvy Supreme Court"

The Supreme Court justices are a bright bunch. But chances are you’re not going to see them at next January’s CES show or ever watch them on a Web video demonstrating how to create apps for the iPhone.

That much was driven home, it seems, during today’s oral arguments in the case City of Ontario v. Quon.

The case examines whether a California police department violated the constitutional rights of an employee when it inspected personal text messages sent and received by a pager owned by the city of Ontario, Calif.

According to this post, at DC Dicta, the Court asked some questions of the lawyers which, well, the justices’ kids and grandkids could have answered while sleepwalking.

According to the story, the first sign of trouble came was about midway through the argument, when Chief Justice John Roberts asked what the difference was “between email and a pager?” (Cue sound of hard slap against forehead.)

At another point, Justice Anthony Kennedy asked what would happen if a text message was sent to an officer at the same time he was sending one to someone else.

“Does it say: ‘Your call is important to us, and we will get back to you?’” Kennedy asked. (Cue sound of louder slap against forehead.)

Justice Antonin Scalia stumbled getting his arms around with the idea of a service provider.

“You mean (the text) doesn’t go right to me?” he asked.

Then he asked whether they can be printed out in hard copy.

“Could Quon print these spicy little conversations and send them to his buddies?” Scalia asked.

Maybe the justices are against cameras in the court because when they think of cameras, they think of those huge cameras on tripods with the cloth to cover the photographers and the supernova flash-bulbs.

via blogs.wsj.com

Unfortunately I doubt the High Court of Australia would be much better.  Certainly when I worked at the Queensland Supreme Court, the level of technological know how amongst most of the judges was very limited indeed.  I posted a podcast on this topic last year, E-courts only work with e-judges and e-lawyers, that you can listen to here:

NSW courtrooms move online

Very exciting news on the future of e-courts in New South Wales, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald:

COURT cases will be conducted live on the internet in NSW from next week.

JusticeLink, a $48 million cutting-edge computer system, will be introduced into the District Court, allowing lawyers, prosecutors, judges and magistrates to conduct procedural hearings online.

Cutting out court appearances for preliminary procedural arguments and directions would make the system more efficient, saving time and money, Attorney-General John Hatzistergos said. While trials and committal hearings would continue to be held in courtrooms, simple procedural matters to be decided online would cut the need for parties to attend court.

"Traditionally, quite a few court appearances could be required to decide procedural matters before the hearing or trial could begin," Mr Hatzistergos. "JusticeLink will allow prosecutors and defence lawyers to log into a bulletin board, where they will type their arguments.

Read more here.

Digital evidence: issues for lawyers and what's over the horizon

Stephen Mason, a Barrister and Associate Senior Research Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies in London, is presenting a free public lecture entitled "Digital Evidence: Issues for Lawyers and What's Over the Horizon", at QUT on Tueday 8 August at 6pm.

E-courts

There was an article in yesterday's IT Australian on the adoption of e-court technology, "Verdict in on future of hi-tech courts".  The article discusses the National Court of the Future at the University of Canberra, but fails mention the <e.law> QUT Moot Court.

The technology that these e-courts utilise is impressive and there is no doubt they have the potential to streamline court proceeings.  However, there are three reasons limiting their adoption:

1. Cost: The cost of installing and maintaining e-courts are prohibitive at the moment.
2. Security: There remain security concerns about conducting litigation electronically.  These concerns should be able to allayed over time.
3. IT skills of the legal profession: Most judges and senior barristers are not sufficiently IT literate to take advantage of the technology.