1. Communities and the
courts, what’s going on?
a practitioner perspective
Justice Wide Open 29 February 2012
William Perrin
william@talkaboutlocal.org
@willperrin
Talk About Local Ltd
http://talkaboutlocal.org
• William Perrin TAL
2. Abandoned cars and weekly arson
Bingfield Park, Rufford Street 2002 Pics – Mark Bailey
3. www.kingscrossenvironment.com
Over 1500 articles
Six volunteer writers – aged up to 65
Campaigns, information, wildlife,
events etc
Strongly pro community/place
Important part of wider
regeneration
400-500 readers a day
4. 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?
5.
6. 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
7. Courts Transparency Charter
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
http://tal.me.uk/c3
8. Head on collision between uncodified tradition
of open justice and badly codified, badly
implemented data protection, copyright,
privacy
9. Join the debate at
http://tal.me.uk/c3
William Perrin
@willperrin
william@talkaboutlocal.org
