Lessons from Reformers: Open Court Data

These case studies are featured in OGP’s Justice Policy Series, Part II: Open Justice paper. Read it here.

Justice Policy Series, Part II: Open Justice Explore how applying the principles of open government can create fairer and more effective justiceTo address barriers that prevent citizens from having their justice needs met, OGP participating governments are working to expand transparency, accountability, and inclusion into all systems of justi... systems.

Buenos Aires criminal courts publish a repositoryAccess to relevant information is essential for enabling participation and ensuring accountability throughout the OGP process. An OGP repository is an online centralized website, webpage, platform or ... of decisions

Criminal Courts 10 and 13 both created an open data repository with all judgments organized by the type of felony, the type of punishment, a description of the case, and a link to the complete decision. The court makes special efforts to anonymize the data to address privacy concerns. Court 13 also publishes plain-language versions of its decisions. Both courts open hearings to the public and publish a schedule of hearings in advance.

Colombia improves judicial services through court transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More

After a 2015 declaration by the Council of State (Colombia’s highest administrative court) to improve transparency and accountability in the justice system, Colombia established the Transparency and Accountability Commission, which was tasked with taking up this initiative. As part of its work, the commission led a 2015 OGP commitment through which they began to publish court data and information, including court memoranda and decisions, information about the court’s officials, and the court’s agenda. As part of the commitment, the Council of State also published procedural manuals for a variety of court processes, such as the tutela, a constitutional rights protection claim available to all citizens. These measures helped the Council of State become more transparent than ever before. Still, corruption and distrust of justice institutions continued, and Colombia extended its efforts into its subsequent action plan. The Council of State’s 2017 commitment aims to implement a variety of digital tools to further increase the court’s transparency, including technological tools that allow citizens to monitor the magistrate election process, a mechanism for citizens to submit complaints and claims online, and better documentation of court processes and requirements.

OTHER OGP COMMITMENTS

• Czech Republic: Publish all district, regional, and high court decisions in a searchable online database (2018-2020).
• Greece: Create a publicly accessible case-law database including anonymized decisions of all administrative courts (2019-2021).
• Paraguay: Create an open justice data portal (2018-2020).
• Slovakia: Create a system to ensure uniform reporting of all judicial decisions (2015-2017).
• Uruguay: Publish video recordings of all public hearings, as well as statistical information from the judicial branch (2016-2018, 2018-2020).

Featured Image Credit: World Bank Photo Collection