Volume 9 Issue 2

The Future of Courts - Do They Have One?*

THE HON JUSTICE MICHAEL KIRBY AC CMG**

The courts are beginning to use new information technology on a daily basis. However, it is important to ensure that the new technology is used in a way, which is harmonious with the basic mission of the law and the courts, to achieve just outcomes according to law by procedures, which are manifestly fair.

Information technology is likely to lead to radical changes in ways of conducting trials. Video links and the use of the net may enable the courts to hear evidence and argument without the witnesses or the parties being present. Such procedures are useful but should not be allowed to threaten the public administration of justice. The common law tradition is one of continuous oral trials in public. This tradition may be threatened if video links and other electronic ways of presenting evidence are used to enable the judge to conduct a trial in private without ever seeing the witnesses or the parties face to face.

Technology can also aid lawyers and judges in preparing arguments and judgments. Search tools already enable lawyers to discover the law on the internet more quickly than in the past. We may soon have voice controlled computers which will be able to find all the cases on a point quickly and efficiently. However, we are a long way from computers which will be able to act as judges. We have made little progress in expert systems in law in the last fifteen years. But there is no doubt that we will make progress in this area.

In considering how to use these new technologies, we need to remember that the pubic will judge the courts on their ability to find just solutions to human problems, not the technology which they are able to bring to the task.

** Justice of the High Court of Australia.