Remote Courts Worldwide – an initiative by Professor Richard Susskind

As courts are strongly affected by Covid 19 pandemic and their functioning has been limited or – in some cases – suspended, experts and specialists are seeking for tools facilitating access to justice.

Professor Richard Susskind, British author, speaker, and independent adviser to international professional firms and national governments in the field of legal industry, launched a website Remote Courts Worldwide to gather information and to exchange best practices in the field of on-line courts.

To ensure ongoing access to justice, governments and judiciaries are rapidly introducing various forms of 'remote court’ – audio hearings (largely by telephone), video hearings (for example, by Skype and Zoom), and paper hearings (decisions delivered on the basis of paper submissions). At remarkable speed, new methods and techniques are being developed. However, there is a danger that the wheel is being reinvented and that there is unnecessary duplication of effort across the world. In response, this site offers a systematic way of remote-court innovators and people who work in the justice system to exchange news of operational systems, as well as of plans, ideas, policies, protocols, techniques, and safeguards. By using this site, justice workers can learn from one another’s successes and disappointments. Please do contribute. The idea is that this site is a repository to which users regularly send their news. Richard Susskind wrote on the website.

Contributions and information are more than welcome.

The service is a joint effort – hosted by the Society for Computers and Law, funded by the UK LawTech Delivery Panel, and supported by Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service.