Administrative Justice System Design Flashcards
Asylum appeal procedure
- now lodge appeal online
- Home Office uploads evidence and reasons
- Appellant uploads all evidence
- Case management by legal officer
- HO reviews the decision
- Appeal listed for hearing
- idea is that it all is done online so nothing gets lost
I, Daniel Blake
- illistrates what happens to people who are digitally excluded
- lead character has no experience using the internet
- all of this added to his mental health unwellness that went ontop of his physical unwellness
Disadvantages of digital
- Trust and fear
- Takes longer online
- loss of non-verbal communication.
- Loss of connection (to hearing or appointment)
- Loss of the face to face element – are witnesses less compelling?
- Losing touch with certain client groups during covid
- Court closures – now much further to a physical court.
Impact on court users in terms of court closures
concerned that court closures could have a negative impact on court users, including those:
- from low income households
- with disabilities or mobility issues
- with children or caring responsibilities
- from rural areas or without access to a car
- who own a business - longer travel times may mean extra costs, such as overtime pay for staff
- who rely on an interpreter - they’re not paid for their travel time so may be less willing to attend court
Two broad views by tomlinson on digitalization
- Justice is enhanced:
- Quick resolution of simple cases;
- Less stress, cost and delay;
- Easier to submit and manage evidence;
- Easier communication between the parties;
- More flexible deployment of judges;
- Redesign offers opportunity to reduce complexity. - Justice is weakened:
- Online hearings are less effective;
- Lower success rate (if they reflect the pattern for paper hearings);
- Harder to participate in remote hearings;
- Multiple visits to assisted digital centres;
- Digital assistance as potentially unregulated legal advice;
- Further to travel for in-person hearings;
- Use of gov.uk website appearing less independent
What about algorithms?
- supposed to predict certain groups being more targeted or more overpoliced
- ‘predictive policing’
- ‘visa streaming’
decide who to investigate - facial recognition tools
- government digital service are expanding
What is access to justice in administrative law? What are the 2 approaches?
- some say that it is the most basic part of a legal system that guarantees the legal rights of all.
1. Narrow - people are legally able to access but do not access in the same way
2. Broader - people can use the remedies in practice without experiencing difficulty
What is Justice and What is Access?
What is justice?
- Timely
- Affordable
- Reasonable distance
- Understandable
What is access?
- Effective remedy
- Fair trial/accountability?
- Fair outcome??
- Equality??
- Legal advice, legal aid, legal representation;
- Access to courts, procedures
Can define Access to Justice in 2 ways:
Descriptive
- Describes what it is:
–> ‘the extent to which citizens are able to gain access to the legal services
necessary to protect and vindicate their legal rights’
Normative
- Sets out how it should be:
–> ‘Every citizen should be equally able to protect their legal rights.
Steel and Morris v UK 2005
- group of people handed out fllyers criticising mcdonalds
- mcdonalds sued people who criticised it
- many would apologise but
steel decided they werent going to apologize and go through with the libel claim - turned into the longest civil trial in english civil history
- public relation disaster for McDonald’s because some allocation were proved to be true
- no legal aid for defamation, steel and morris couldnt afford it so they represented themselves for 2 1/2 years in court
- had some pro bono help but majority of legal issueing was on themselves
- went to court for the lack of legal aid going against ECHR especially when compared to the mcdonalds legal aid
Immigration offices 2018-2024
Drops in 2018, goes up a bit in 2023 and then heads back down
Housing offices 2018-2024
Drops in 2018, goes up a bit in 2023 and then heads back down
Welfare benefit offices 2018-2024
linear downard trend
System fragmentation
- Increasing complexity of law – changing legal provisions, proliferating case law;
- Fewer legal aid providers taking a narrower range of cases → spillover of need;
- Fewer non-lawyer advice services because of austerity;
- But still an assumption that citizens can use the remedies themselves.
Access to courts: aarhus convention
- an environmental agreement between different states where if a case like judicial review is to do with environmental protection then you can have a cost limitation so you can have protection against the other sides costs
- Links environmental rights and human rights
- Links government accountability and environmental protection
- Acknowledges that we owe an obligation to future generations
- Establishes that sustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders
