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I don’t understand how is in well functioning democracy we can have secret courts and paywall for court documents They should be free and readily accessible e
by manquer 3y ago
I don’t understand how is in well functioning democracy we can have secret courts and paywall for court documents
They should be free and readily accessible even if they cost a lot to produce and host (which they don’t)
- for civil litigation the claimants can pay any costs as part of filing fees
- for criminal government can bear the cost as part of prosecution.
- Ekaros 3y agoProbably left over from times when it all wasn't digital. You don't really want 10 people one after other to go and request all papers from all trials since the court started...
- delfinom 3y agoPart of it is holdover from the paper era, part of it is because these court document systems are run by third parties that need to get paid. Court systems are underfunded nationwide to run their own IT/software dev and just pay for third parties outright to cover costs fully.
- manquer 3y ago$1 per page is hardly to cover the costs ,this single case to access just so far would come to $3000! Alameda Superior court also charges for every query!. SF court just a county over is able to this for free. I am not saying there are no costs , but whatever costs they just be charged to the litigators in civil or the government in criminal once not to the public every time
- Tangurena2 3y agoYou can thank the Reagan administration for that. They gave the rights to all Federal court records to WestLaw. There was a small company (whose name I forget) who got shafted as DoJ gave everything to WestLaw. And if you file a case in federal courts, you have to use WestLaw's page numbering. Which you can only get if you subscribe to them. The semi-joke is that we have the best legal system that money can buy.