6 ms·

Isn't there something like court transcripts, where the public can read what the judge is saying? If the system is so opaque, what mechanism exists to protect

Isn't there something like court transcripts, where the public can read what the judge is saying? If the system is so opaque, what mechanism exists to protect against a judge who does whatever they want? If the judge is truly using some kind of apparent word salad to justify arbitrary decisions which don't pass a basic test of reasoning, doesn't this effectively mean that a judge can do this anytime without consequences?

Ntrails 7y ago
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/order-a-transcript-of-court-or-tribunal-proceedings-form-ex107 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/order-a-transcrip... I think that is the appropriate link. In general you can pay to get a copy of any transcribed court proceeding assuming the court approves. Some small hearings are not transcribed (eg magistrates) so are not available. Records are only kept for a few years?
- rwmj 7y ago
  No [edit: ,] records are kept forever. There are court records going back to the middle ages, mostly stored in the National Archives (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/start-here/what-we-have/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/...).
  - 5555624 7y ago
    >No records are kept forever. Not to be that guy; but, I think you need a comma in there: "No, records are kept forever" or just remove "no." Maybe it was just me; but, I read that sentence as saying records were not kept forever. Court records need to be kept, since they can provide precedent.
chrisseaton 7y ago
> Isn't there something like court transcripts I don't believe you can get these in real time. You can apply for them afterwards, or you can go and listen for yourself, as this person did. In the UK we generally don't go in for blow-by-blow realtime reporting of court cases, like they do in the US. > doesn't this effectively mean that a judge can do this anytime without consequences? Judges in the UK are appointed professionals - they aren't elected as in many places in the US, so they aren't pursuing an agenda or appealing to an electorate. Judges going rogue isn't a problem in practice.
- mcherm 7y ago
  > Judges in the UK are appointed professionals - they aren't elected as in many places in the US, so they aren't pursuing an agenda or appealing to an electorate. Judges going rogue isn't a problem in practice. I think in this very case the judge clearly IS pursuing an agenda. It may be a government-approved agenda, but it is clearly an agenda separate from the even-handed pursuit of justice.
  - mantap 7y ago
    Judges do sometimes have agendas. But that is exactly why higher courts exist. This particular case is shaping up to be appealed all the way to UK Supreme Court, these initial hearings are just practice sessions for both sides to hone their arguments.
- fareesh 7y ago
  They can still have a personal agenda or be intimidated to pursue an agenda, or be incentivised to pursue an agenda. If the transcript exists it ought to be made available quickly to the public. If it's a matter of fees, there ought to be a way of paying in advance for the transcript for a particular day, unless I'm missing something that's unique to the transcription process that makes it less feasible than I'm imagining it to be.
- wil421 7y ago
  Explain to me how being appointed by someone makes you any less bias them being elected. Most states have non-partisan elections for Judges, only 18 allow then to run with a political party. Federal Judges are appointed and about 90% of state judges are elected. There have only been 2 Federal judges that have been impeached since 1989.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Explain to me how being appointed by someone makes you any less bias them being elected. Because you generally don't need to be re-appointed. You generally do need to be re-elected. In order to be re-elected you need to please the electorate, rather than do the 'right thing' (whatever that is.) This can create a conflict of interest, such as judges prioritising 'being tough on crime' over the facts of cases.
DanBC 7y ago
Some high profile cases will be published on the Judiciary.uk website, but these will be decisions and judgments, not full transcripts. The site also publishes "coroner's reports to prevent future deaths"[1], and any committal for contempt cases. https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/ https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/ Here's what they have for Assange's previous cases: https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/?filter_type=judgment&search=assange&tax-single-judgment-jurisdiction=-1&tax-single-court=-1&date-range-after=&date-range-before= https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/?filter_type=judgment&sea... Some other cases will be pushed to the charitable organisation BAILII, who'll do any necessary anonymisation, apply a standard format, and put them up on the web. https://www.bailii.org/ https://www.bailii.org/ Here's the BAILII search for Assange: https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/lucy_search_1.cgi?highlight=1&method=boolean&mask_path=/&sort=rank&results=200&query=(assange) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/lucy_search_1.cgi?highlight=1... But in general, no, we don't have full transcripts easily available and nothing apart from court reporting is available in real time. The collapse of journalism as a career, especially local journalism (maybe this is just a UK thing?) means a lot of court reporting just doesn't happen any more, which is a bit worrying. [1] If anyone's looking for a project something that scrapes that data and makes it easier to search and pull out themes would be welcomed by many people in England. It's a shame that this important learning is locked up in PDFs that are hard to find and use.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  In The Netherlands a platform arose to look up local news per city/town/village, called In De Buurt ("In The Neighborhood") [1]. It isn't complete ie. does not cover all cities, nor does it cover specific neighborhoods of cities (kinda ironic) but it does have professional journalists who do the work (I'd assume they work there freelance). It is considered complimentary to local TV/newspaper/radio (which also still exist, albeit different than pre-WWW). [1] https://indebuurt.nl https://indebuurt.nl
- zaarn 7y ago
  In Europe, realtime court reporting just isn't as much of a thing as in the US, were court cases are more easily sensationalized.
jackweirdy 7y ago
> If the system is so opaque, what mechanism exists to protect against a judge who does whatever they want? Usually a higher court or the court of appeal, the latter of which you can appear before an unlimited number of times if you have grounds. Both have mechanisms for urgent hearings. Judges can also be struck off for misconduct, which happens from time to time Just to add though, this is not a judge, this is a magistrate, who take legal advice but are not legally qualified like a judge is.
- fareesh 7y ago
  > this is a magistrate It says in some online articles that she is a district judge - is that the same thing as a magistrate? It seems unusual for an international case involving an Australian citizen, the UK crown and the US government to be at the mercy of someone who is not qualified at the highest level to make decisions and adjudicate the matter.
  - SteveSmith16384 7y ago
    IANAL, but I believe that most cases start in a Magistrates, and are then escalated if required (or appealed).
    - tialaramex 7y ago
      Ordinary criminal cases in England split into two categories which overlap to produce a third. The first category is "Summary offences" like maybe you stole merchandise from a shop or you punched somebody in a bar fight but there was no lasting harm done. These are heard by Magistrates, who are just lay people who volunteered and are "of good character" - it's usually like teachers and bank managers and people like that - with no jury, the magistrates are restricted in what sentences they can possibly order, and an actual lawyer sits with them to explain any details of law. At the other extreme there are "Indictable offences" like murder or rape. These are heard by a Judge and jury, guilt is decided by the jury and the sentence is only limited constitutionally (e.g. "life without possibility of parole" is prohibited as a sentence for any crime, except that it can be imposed for multiple independently conceived crimes of murder) In the middle is an overlap "Tried either way". This means the Prosecutors can decide e.g. "This was very serious, we need a Judge to impose the harsh sentence we'll request" or "This seems pretty routine, let magistrates handle it". If the magistrates disagree (they meet only as panels of three) they can send the case to a judge for a harsher sentence whereas a judge doesn't need to send cases down to magistrates they can just impose a lesser sentence themselves.

Ntrails 7y ago

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/order-a-transcript-of-court-or-tribunal-proceedings-form-ex107 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/order-a-transcrip... I think that is the appropriate link. In general you can pay to get a copy of any transcribed court proceeding assuming the court approves. Some small hearings are not transcribed (eg magistrates) so are not available. Records are only kept for a few years?

rwmj 7y ago
No [edit: ,] records are kept forever. There are court records going back to the middle ages, mostly stored in the National Archives (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/start-here/what-we-have/ https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/...).
- 5555624 7y ago
  >No records are kept forever. Not to be that guy; but, I think you need a comma in there: "No, records are kept forever" or just remove "no." Maybe it was just me; but, I read that sentence as saying records were not kept forever. Court records need to be kept, since they can provide precedent.

chrisseaton 7y ago

> Isn't there something like court transcripts I don't believe you can get these in real time. You can apply for them afterwards, or you can go and listen for yourself, as this person did. In the UK we generally don't go in for blow-by-blow realtime reporting of court cases, like they do in the US. > doesn't this effectively mean that a judge can do this anytime without consequences? Judges in the UK are appointed professionals - they aren't elected as in many places in the US, so they aren't pursuing an agenda or appealing to an electorate. Judges going rogue isn't a problem in practice.

mcherm 7y ago
> Judges in the UK are appointed professionals - they aren't elected as in many places in the US, so they aren't pursuing an agenda or appealing to an electorate. Judges going rogue isn't a problem in practice. I think in this very case the judge clearly IS pursuing an agenda. It may be a government-approved agenda, but it is clearly an agenda separate from the even-handed pursuit of justice.
- mantap 7y ago
  Judges do sometimes have agendas. But that is exactly why higher courts exist. This particular case is shaping up to be appealed all the way to UK Supreme Court, these initial hearings are just practice sessions for both sides to hone their arguments.
fareesh 7y ago
They can still have a personal agenda or be intimidated to pursue an agenda, or be incentivised to pursue an agenda. If the transcript exists it ought to be made available quickly to the public. If it's a matter of fees, there ought to be a way of paying in advance for the transcript for a particular day, unless I'm missing something that's unique to the transcription process that makes it less feasible than I'm imagining it to be.
wil421 7y ago
Explain to me how being appointed by someone makes you any less bias them being elected. Most states have non-partisan elections for Judges, only 18 allow then to run with a political party. Federal Judges are appointed and about 90% of state judges are elected. There have only been 2 Federal judges that have been impeached since 1989.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Explain to me how being appointed by someone makes you any less bias them being elected. Because you generally don't need to be re-appointed. You generally do need to be re-elected. In order to be re-elected you need to please the electorate, rather than do the 'right thing' (whatever that is.) This can create a conflict of interest, such as judges prioritising 'being tough on crime' over the facts of cases.

DanBC 7y ago

Some high profile cases will be published on the Judiciary.uk website, but these will be decisions and judgments, not full transcripts. The site also publishes "coroner's reports to prevent future deaths"[1], and any committal for contempt cases. https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/ https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/ Here's what they have for Assange's previous cases: https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/?filter_type=judgment&search=assange&tax-single-judgment-jurisdiction=-1&tax-single-court=-1&date-range-after=&date-range-before= https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/?filter_type=judgment&sea... Some other cases will be pushed to the charitable organisation BAILII, who'll do any necessary anonymisation, apply a standard format, and put them up on the web. https://www.bailii.org/ https://www.bailii.org/ Here's the BAILII search for Assange: https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/lucy_search_1.cgi?highlight=1&method=boolean&mask_path=/&sort=rank&results=200&query=(assange) https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/lucy_search_1.cgi?highlight=1... But in general, no, we don't have full transcripts easily available and nothing apart from court reporting is available in real time. The collapse of journalism as a career, especially local journalism (maybe this is just a UK thing?) means a lot of court reporting just doesn't happen any more, which is a bit worrying. [1] If anyone's looking for a project something that scrapes that data and makes it easier to search and pull out themes would be welcomed by many people in England. It's a shame that this important learning is locked up in PDFs that are hard to find and use.

Fnoord 7y ago
In The Netherlands a platform arose to look up local news per city/town/village, called In De Buurt ("In The Neighborhood") [1]. It isn't complete ie. does not cover all cities, nor does it cover specific neighborhoods of cities (kinda ironic) but it does have professional journalists who do the work (I'd assume they work there freelance). It is considered complimentary to local TV/newspaper/radio (which also still exist, albeit different than pre-WWW). [1] https://indebuurt.nl https://indebuurt.nl
zaarn 7y ago
In Europe, realtime court reporting just isn't as much of a thing as in the US, were court cases are more easily sensationalized.

jackweirdy 7y ago

> If the system is so opaque, what mechanism exists to protect against a judge who does whatever they want? Usually a higher court or the court of appeal, the latter of which you can appear before an unlimited number of times if you have grounds. Both have mechanisms for urgent hearings. Judges can also be struck off for misconduct, which happens from time to time Just to add though, this is not a judge, this is a magistrate, who take legal advice but are not legally qualified like a judge is.

fareesh 7y ago
> this is a magistrate It says in some online articles that she is a district judge - is that the same thing as a magistrate? It seems unusual for an international case involving an Australian citizen, the UK crown and the US government to be at the mercy of someone who is not qualified at the highest level to make decisions and adjudicate the matter.
- SteveSmith16384 7y ago
  IANAL, but I believe that most cases start in a Magistrates, and are then escalated if required (or appealed).
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Ordinary criminal cases in England split into two categories which overlap to produce a third. The first category is "Summary offences" like maybe you stole merchandise from a shop or you punched somebody in a bar fight but there was no lasting harm done. These are heard by Magistrates, who are just lay people who volunteered and are "of good character" - it's usually like teachers and bank managers and people like that - with no jury, the magistrates are restricted in what sentences they can possibly order, and an actual lawyer sits with them to explain any details of law. At the other extreme there are "Indictable offences" like murder or rape. These are heard by a Judge and jury, guilt is decided by the jury and the sentence is only limited constitutionally (e.g. "life without possibility of parole" is prohibited as a sentence for any crime, except that it can be imposed for multiple independently conceived crimes of murder) In the middle is an overlap "Tried either way". This means the Prosecutors can decide e.g. "This was very serious, we need a Judge to impose the harsh sentence we'll request" or "This seems pretty routine, let magistrates handle it". If the magistrates disagree (they meet only as panels of three) they can send the case to a judge for a harsher sentence whereas a judge doesn't need to send cases down to magistrates they can just impose a lesser sentence themselves.