Helping the global justice community transition to remote courts during Covid-19

At LawtechUK we fast saw the global justice community struggling to transition to remove courts during the Covid-19 restrictions. We worked with the Society of Computers and Law and HMCTS to develop Remote Courts Worldwide, as a resource around which that community could come together to share learning and developing best practice.

The site now has content from over 160 countries represented, and while restrictions have eased, the challenges and opportunities of remote hearings and alternatives to traditional courts remain still to be addressed. Futurist Richard Susskind who chaired the project said:

Today, we have updates from 168 jurisdictions that have hosted remote hearings of one sort or another, most usually by video. It was barely imaginable in early 2020 that technology would come to be used so rapidly and pervasively. In many ways, the provision of remote court service has accelerated developments in our justice systems that many of us felt were long over-due. Judges, lawyers, policymakers, and court users have seen that there are, for some cases at least, reliable and effective alternatives to the conventional hearing.

An infographic of a survey from the Remote Courts Worldwide community can be found here.