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The best way for subpostmaster to defend themselves in court is to get the Horizon to prove itself through double-column, and recouncilation of their own genera

The best way for subpostmaster to defend themselves in court is to get the Horizon to prove itself through double-column, and recouncilation of their own general ledger. Unable to do that? Horizon eats it.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
Unfortunately, in England and Wales, courts consider computers, as a matter of law, to have been working correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary. Therefore, evidence produced by computers is treated as reliable unless other evidence suggests otherwise. This way of handling evidence is known as a ‘rebuttable presumption’. A court will treat a computer as if it is working perfectly unless someone can show why that is not the case. (taken from https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2022/06/30/the-legal-rule-that-computers-are-presumed-to-be-operating-correctly-unforeseen-and-unjust-consequences/ https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2022/06/30/the-legal-rule-that-...) The sub post masters did not have access to the evidence required to show that the Horizon system was buggy and so were denied justice.
- jabroni_salad 2y ago
  per the submitted post, it seems that every time a sub postmaster manages to get an expert witness into court, the PO ends up settling out of court instead of continuing legal actions. For really good and pure reasons I am sure.
  - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
    Quite. The higher ups at the Post Office clearly knew about the bugs in the system and took steps to avoid any public disclosure of them.
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    This is why expert defense witnesses are important, but usually only the prosecution (government) has the budget for an expert, or a competent expert. In the USA the courts are supposed to provide an expert for the defense upon request, but this rarely happens, or when it does, the budget is so small that nobody competent can be found.
- goodcanadian 2y ago
  The really bothersome aspect to my mind is not that the first handful of sub-postmasters were erroneously convicted. It is that they would sooner believe 900(!) sub-postmasters were guilty of fraud and theft than that maybe there is something wrong with the software.
  - Timshel 2y ago
    ? The issue is that they knew. In 2003 an it expert identified issues so they dropped some charges.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  > Unfortunately, in England and Wales, courts consider computers, as a matter of law, to have been working correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary. Wow, not a single lawmaker there was ever a Software Engineer, eh? What a laughable presumption. The opposite would make more sense: Presume output of a computer is unreliable. Allow computers to be cross examined (through examining source code, interviewing developers and so on) and unless the hardware and software manufacturer can prove their systems' correctness, treat it as an unreliable witness.
  - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
    I can relate to the reasoning behind the law as otherwise defendants would be arguing about every single instance of computer evidence and most computer evidence (e.g. logs) is reliable to some degree. I think there needs to be a way to distinguish between simple computer evidence that is recording facts versus complex computer evidence that requires detailed knowledge of the software involved.
    - masfuerte 2y ago
      Most people would consider a scanned invoice to be "simple computer evidence" but as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Xerox scanners had a bug where they were changing digits in scanned pages.
      - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
        Yes, it's a tricky balance to be made between not having miscarriages of justice and not bogging down the entire court system.
- egberts1 2y ago
  We can only imagine the proliferation on the application of "rebuttable presumption". Is DNA evidence yet another form of "rebuttable presumption" in Wales & England?
- qingcharles 2y ago
  I'm pretty certain this is the same in the USA, too. Certainly you don't need a witness to lay a foundation for entering government web sites into evidence as they have a rebuttable presumption they haven't been tampered with.
lesuorac 2y ago
There's no amount of "double-column" accounting that will fix the situation; Fujitsu can just submit false results much like they falsely claim the software results were valid. It's not convoluted, just prosecute them for fraud/perjury. You presented the results of a computer program as valid even when you knew they weren't resulting in many false convictions.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago

Unfortunately, in England and Wales, courts consider computers, as a matter of law, to have been working correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary. Therefore, evidence produced by computers is treated as reliable unless other evidence suggests otherwise. This way of handling evidence is known as a ‘rebuttable presumption’. A court will treat a computer as if it is working perfectly unless someone can show why that is not the case. (taken from https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2022/06/30/the-legal-rule-that-computers-are-presumed-to-be-operating-correctly-unforeseen-and-unjust-consequences/ https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2022/06/30/the-legal-rule-that-...) The sub post masters did not have access to the evidence required to show that the Horizon system was buggy and so were denied justice.

jabroni_salad 2y ago
per the submitted post, it seems that every time a sub postmaster manages to get an expert witness into court, the PO ends up settling out of court instead of continuing legal actions. For really good and pure reasons I am sure.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  Quite. The higher ups at the Post Office clearly knew about the bugs in the system and took steps to avoid any public disclosure of them.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  This is why expert defense witnesses are important, but usually only the prosecution (government) has the budget for an expert, or a competent expert. In the USA the courts are supposed to provide an expert for the defense upon request, but this rarely happens, or when it does, the budget is so small that nobody competent can be found.
goodcanadian 2y ago
The really bothersome aspect to my mind is not that the first handful of sub-postmasters were erroneously convicted. It is that they would sooner believe 900(!) sub-postmasters were guilty of fraud and theft than that maybe there is something wrong with the software.
- Timshel 2y ago
  ? The issue is that they knew. In 2003 an it expert identified issues so they dropped some charges.
ryandrake 2y ago
> Unfortunately, in England and Wales, courts consider computers, as a matter of law, to have been working correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary. Wow, not a single lawmaker there was ever a Software Engineer, eh? What a laughable presumption. The opposite would make more sense: Presume output of a computer is unreliable. Allow computers to be cross examined (through examining source code, interviewing developers and so on) and unless the hardware and software manufacturer can prove their systems' correctness, treat it as an unreliable witness.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  I can relate to the reasoning behind the law as otherwise defendants would be arguing about every single instance of computer evidence and most computer evidence (e.g. logs) is reliable to some degree. I think there needs to be a way to distinguish between simple computer evidence that is recording facts versus complex computer evidence that requires detailed knowledge of the software involved.
  - masfuerte 2y ago
    Most people would consider a scanned invoice to be "simple computer evidence" but as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Xerox scanners had a bug where they were changing digits in scanned pages.
    - ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
      Yes, it's a tricky balance to be made between not having miscarriages of justice and not bogging down the entire court system.
egberts1 2y ago
We can only imagine the proliferation on the application of "rebuttable presumption". Is DNA evidence yet another form of "rebuttable presumption" in Wales & England?
qingcharles 2y ago
I'm pretty certain this is the same in the USA, too. Certainly you don't need a witness to lay a foundation for entering government web sites into evidence as they have a rebuttable presumption they haven't been tampered with.

lesuorac 2y ago

There's no amount of "double-column" accounting that will fix the situation; Fujitsu can just submit false results much like they falsely claim the software results were valid. It's not convoluted, just prosecute them for fraud/perjury. You presented the results of a computer program as valid even when you knew they weren't resulting in many false convictions.