Memory Illusions and Cybernannies

Over the last week I read a couple of very interesting books. One was Dr Julia Shaw’s The Memory Illusion. Dr. Shaw describes herself as a “memory hacker” and has a You Tube presence where she explains a number of the issues that arise in her book.

The other book was The Cyber Effect by Dr Mary Aiken who reminds us on a number of occasions in every chapter that she is a trained cyberpsychologist and cyberbehavioural specialist and who was a consultant for CSI-Cyber which, having watched a few episodes, I abandoned. Regrettably I don’t see that qualification as a recommendation, but that is a subjective view and I put it to one side.

Both books were fascinating. Julia Shaw’s book in my view should be required reading for lawyers and judges. We place a considerable amount of emphasis upon memory assisted by the way in which a witness presents him or herself -what we call demeanour. Demeanour has been well and truly discredited by Robert Fisher QC in an article entitled “The Demeanour Fallacy” [2014] NZ Law Review 575. The issue has also been covered by  Chris Gallavin in a piece entitled “Demeanour Evidence as the backbone of the adversarial process” Lawtalk Issue 834 14 March 2014 http://www.lawsociety.org.nz/lawtalk/issue-837/demeanour-evidence-as-the-backbone-of-the-adversarial-process

A careful reading of The Memory Illusion is rewarding although worrisome. The chapter on false memories, evidence and the way in which investigators may conclude that “where there is smoke there is fire” along with suggestive interviewing techniques is quite disturbing and horrifying at times.

But the book is more than that, although the chapter on false memories, particularly the discussions about memory retrieval techniques, was very interesting. The book examines the nature of memory and how memories develop and shift over time, often in a deceptive way. The book also emphasises how the power of suggestion can influence memory. What does this mean – that everyone is a liar to some degree? Of course not. A liar is a person who tells a falsehood knowing it to be false. Slippery memory, as Sir Edward Coke described it, means that what we are saying we believe to be true even although, objectively, it is not.

A skilful cross-examiner knows how to work on memory and highlight its fallibility. If the lawyer can get the witness in a criminal trial to acknowledge that he or she cannot be sure, the battle is pretty well won. But even the most skilful cross-examiner will benefit from a reading of The Memory Illusion. It will add a number of additional arrows to the forensic armoury. For me the book emphasises the risks of determining criminal liability on memory or recalled facts alone. A healthy amount of scepticism and a reluctance to take an account simply and uncritically at face value is a lesson I draw from the book.

The Cyber Effect is about how technology is changing human behaviour. Although Dr Aiken starts out by stating the advantages of the Internet and new communications technologies, I fear that within a few pages the problems start with the suggestion that cyberspace is an actual place. Although Dr Aiken answers unequivocally in the affirmative it clearly is not. I am not sure that it would be helpful to try and define cyberspace – it is many things to many people. The term was coined by William Gibson in his astonishingly insightful Neuromancer and in subsequent books Gibson imagines the network (I use the term generically) as a place. But it isn’t. The Internet is no more and no less than a transport system to which a number of platforms and applications have been bolted. Its purpose –  Communication. But it is communication plus interactivity and it is that upon which Aiken relies to support her argument. If that gives rise to a “place” then may I congratulate her imagination. The printing press – a form of mechanised writing that revolutionised intellectual activity in Early-modern Europe – didn’t create a new “place”. It enabled alternative means of communication. The Printing Press was the first Information Technology. And it was roundly criticised as well.

Although the book purports to explain how new technologies influence human behaviour it doesn’t really offer a convincing argument. I have often quoted the phrase attributed to McLuhan – we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us – and I was hoping for a rational expansion of that theory. It was not to be. Instead it was a collection of horror stories about how people and technology have had problems. And so we get stories of kids with technology, the problems of cyberbullying, the issues of on-line relationships, the misnamed Deep Web when she really means the Dark Web – all the familiar tales attributing all sorts of bizarre behaviours to technology – which is correct – and suggesting that this could become the norm.

What Dr Aiken fails to see is that by the time we recognise the problems with the technology it is too late. I assume that Dr Aiken is a Digital Immigrant, and she certainly espouses the cause that our established values are slipping away in the face of an unrelenting onslaught of cyber-bad stuff. But as I say, the changes have already taken place. By the end of the book she makes her position clear (although she misquotes the comments Robert Bolt attributed to Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons which the historical More would never have said). She is pro-social order in cyberspace, even if that means governance or regulation and she makes no apology for that.

Dr Aiken is free to hold her position and to advocate it and she argues her case well in her book. But it is all a bit unrelenting, all a bit tiresome these tales of Internet woe. It is clear that if Dr Aiken had her way the very qualities that distinguish the Digital Paradigm from what has gone before, including continuous disruptive and transformative change and permissionless innovation, will be hobbled and restricted in a Nanny Net.

For another review of The Cyber Effect see here

Rozenberg QC on the Online Court – A Review

Joshua Rozenberg QC is an English journalist and commentator on matters legal. I have read his articles and commentaries now for some time. He is thoughtful and balanced, unafraid to call it as he sees it. He practiced as a barrister before moving into journalism and was appointed honorary Queens Counsel for his work as the “pre-eminent legal analyst or modern times.”

So it was that I saw a reference to his monograph entitled “The Online Court – will it work?” on his Facebook page. Rozenberg conceded that it was too long for any of his normal outlets to publish but this piece was available for download from Amazon. He hastened to point out that although much of his work is available at no charge the essay was not commissioned, sponsored nor supported by advertising so a small charge of £1.99 was levied at the UK Amazon store and $US2.49 at Amazon.com. A reasonable fee under the circumstances. Just one problem. The essay was available only to UK customers.

I have written before about the bizarre practice of geoblocking in an on-line borderless world. My earlier encounters with this loathsome practice have been in attempts to purchase software and video content. The physical product isn’t a problem. A proxy forwarding address in the US or UK solves most difficulties. However, additional issues arise when one is dealing solely with digital content. Without an English address, obtaining the content seems nigh impossible. What I cannot understand is why Amazon would want to restrict distribution in this way. After all, place doesn’t matter in the delivery of online content. No greater delivery or packaging costs are incurred. No explanation is given for restricting distribution.

However, that said, Rozenberg’s essay makes fascinating reading. He opens his discussion with the background to the current reforms starting with early attempts which were not very successful because they were not judge-led – indeed an essential requirement in any proposed reform of the Courts process. After all, next to Court staff Judges are the principal users of the Court system. Furthermore, when I talk about “Judge-led” I don’t mean that judges should be kept informed about what the IT people are doing, but that the judges actively lead the process. This was enabled in England by the formation of the Judicial Office which was set up in 2006 under leadership of the Lord Chief Justice. The development of a single courts service further assisted. Rozenberg sets out the way in which the current judicial leadership role came to be in a helpful overview.

He then passes on to cover the reform programme of Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCTS) and the three strands of work suggested by Lord Justice Briggs

• The use of modern IT
• Less reliance on Court buildings
• The allocation of some work done by Judges to case lawyers

The allocation of funding in 2014 has remained in place, an achievement Rozenberg attributes to the influence of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.

Rozenberg then goes on to summaries the various projects, numbering in total 21, some of which, like the eJudiciary service, are already up and running. For those of us looking at the English IT reforms from the outside, this is an invaluable snapshot of where things are and where it is hoped they may go. Most of the publicity that one sees about the reforms focus upon the Online Court proposals but Rozenberg makes it clear that this is only a part of the story. I was impressed with the scope of the proposals. I was familiar with the eJudiciary service, having had it demonstrated to me by His Honour Judge John Tanzer in 2015. I was also familiar with the Rolls project but other elements were new.

Rozenberg then passes to deal with the online court which is probably the most revolutionary proposal.  He covers the initial proposals by Professor Richard Susskind and Lord Justice Briggs. The Online Court involves the innovative use of technology. Two paths were available. One was to use technology to imitate the existing system. This would merely be a digital replication of a system that would be recognisable to William Garrow or Charles Dickens. Digital technologies allow for disruptive change. Disruption in and of itself cannot be seen to be an end. But transformation by means of disruption, especially if that transformation improves, in this case, just outcomes is to be applauded.

The Susskind and Briggs proposals change the emphasis of the Court process. In the past, the process has been geared towards getting the case before the Court. That can be somewhat complex and that complexity will invariably involve the participation of lawyers, assisting the litigants through the procedural shoals to a hearing.

The online process is geared towards introducing the possibility of resolution from the very beginning. At all stages of the process resolution is the objective, rather than waiting for the judge to resolve the matter. This the various stages of the process offer opportunities for resolution, rather than being milestones that have to be passed on the way to a hearing.

The issue that has given cause for concern is that lawyers are not seen as essential to the process. Rozenberg covers this real area of concern by pointing out that lawyers will have a different role in the process, rather than being excluded from it all together. The use of an App will assist litigants although there is nothing to prevent a litigant seeking legal assistance or advice. But one of the objectives of the new process is to improve access to justice and if that can be achieved it will be a significant accomplishment and a validation of the use of IT.

Rozenberg examines the feasibility of the system uner the ambiguous heading “Will IT work”. There are two questions posed here. Will I(nformation)T(echnology) work which puts the focus upon the way in which the IT projects are put together. Or will IT (the big strategic plan) work. It is the first question that Rozenberg attempts to answer although, because the projects are IT dependent the answer to one will answer the other.

Rozenberg ends on a cautious note, stating, correctly in my view, that digitising the courts is the biggest challenge to the judicial system in 150 years and it is a reform that must not fail, if the restoration and maintenance of access to justice for those who need it most is to take place.

The essay or publication is an excellent example of the enabling power of technology. A close examination of highly significant and innovative approaches to the justice system by England’s leading legal commentator adds to informed debate. Rozenberg is to be congratulated for taking the initiative to put the information on line. It is a pity that Amazon’s policies limit its accessibility.

But for me the essay was extremely valuable in that it provides meaningful context to the on-line court – an innovation in which I have been very interested since I met and spoke with Professor Susskind about it in May of last year. That broader view, and the scope of the IT projects that are in train for the English system give added weight to Rozenberg’s conclusion. It is clearly written, as one would expect, well worth the £1.99 from Amazon and valuable assessment of the state of English Courts IT at the cross roads.

District Court Decisions Online?

Recently David Farrar in Kiwiblog commented on the decision of the Government to step back from a provision – Clause 401 – of the Judicature Modernisation Bill requiring final decisions of the District Court to be published online. I thought I would expand on his piece.

The deleted Clause 401 reads:

(1) Every final written judgment of the court (excluding the Family Court, the Youth Court, and the Disputes Tribunal) must be published on the Internet as soon as practicable unless there is good reason not to publish the complete judgment.

(2) Good reason not to publish a judgment or part of it includes the following:

(a) non-publication is necessary because of a suppression order or statutory requirement that affects publication or continued publication:

(b)the judgment falls into a category of judgments that are of limited public value:

(c) taking into account the presumption in subsection (1) in favour of publication, a Judge nevertheless determines that the judgment or any part of it should not be published because publication or the effect of publication would be contrary to the interests of justice.

(3) In this section, final written judgment means a written decision that determines or substantially determines the outcome of any proceedings and is either—

(a) a written reserved judgment; or

(b) an oral judgment transcribed by an official transcription service.

 

I was gratified when I saw this section was to be part of the Act. It was the culmination of a process in which I had been involved since 1996 to have the decisions of all the New Zealand Courts made available online.

The proposition is not that revolutionary. In common law countries – those that have inherited or adopted the English system of justice – the decisions of the Courts interpret and develop the law. The Internet meant that the decisions of the Courts could be released from the restrictions of paper and library shelves and be available for distribution to all. As a society that holds that ignorance of the law is no excuse it seemed perverse that there should still be obstacles to knowing what the law was.

The path to publication of the decisions of the Courts was not an easy one. I won’t traverse that story here. Suffice to say there was resistance from a number of unexpected quarters and a lack of understanding of the importance of the concept of the transparent operation of the Courts.

The decisions of the appellate Courts such as the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court are available from the Courts of New Zealand Website as well as the clunky and difficult to navigate Judicial Decisions Online (JDO) where the decisions of the High Court may be found. Decisions are also available from the excellent if underfunded and little appreciated NZLII (New Zealand Legal Information Institute) where the search capabilities are a little easier in terms of analysing results than JDO and the databases are larger.

All that remained was for the decisions of the District Court to be made available online. Having a requirement in legislation made compliance mandatory. It was going to be a large task but there were a number of alternative ways in which it could be accomplished. But  mandatory publication will now not take place.

All is not lost. The District Court recently launched its own website and selected decisions of the District Court will be made available. Upon its release

Chief District Court Judge Jan-Marie Doogue said that from now on, a Publications Unit working under an editorial board of senior judges, will select for online publication those decisions considered of high public or legal interest and which meet criteria for publication. This calendar year, the website expects to publish about 2500 decisions, rising to about 4000 next year.

That is to be applauded. But if Clause 401 had remained it would have required funding. And that seems to have been an important driver. Recently the Minister of Justice released a statement explaining why Clause 401 had been removed. I reproduce it below along with my comments and critique.

“The Justice Ministry has advised me that each year the District Court (excluding the Family Court and Youth Court) delivers 15,300 final decisions that would fall within the scope of the requirement in the Bill.

 They are made up of:

*       300 written decisions (reserved judgments), mainly delivered in the civil jurisdiction; and

*       15,000 transcribed oral decisions, including civil and criminal judgments, and sentencing notes.

 The District Court doesn’t publish its judgments online, because it does not have the judicial resource that senior courts have in the form of Clerks and other judicial staff.

This is the first problem. The publication of decisions should have been properly resourced from the beginning rather than be left to existing internal arrangements. That said, there is in existence a database of decisions available on the internal Court system where decisions are collected and indexed. This is done as decisions are transcribed either by the transcription service or Judges’ PAs.

 The sheer volume of decisions by the District Court alone make it difficult for every decision to be published, especially due to the fact 15,000 oral decisions would need to be transcribed, checked, and for each Judge to sign off on each decision before they are published.

Believe it or not a large number of decisions are transcribed and must be signed in hard copy by Judges. Included in these are decisions declining bail and sentencing decisions. If one looks at the proposed clause 401(3) the definition of a final written judgement reduced the volume quite considerably. I recall when we were discussing the publishing criteria for judgements in the early phases of the campaign for putting decisions online the test was “a final decision of a contested issue between the parties or the sentence imposed in criminal matters.” Furthermore the provisions of Clause 401(2)(a) – (c) provided a further filter. This seems to have been overlooked.

 The resourcing of staff alone to begin publishing final judgments would result in an increase of at least 10 FTE publication staff, at approximately $1 million. This does not take into consideration other staffing increases, training, overhead costs, equipment, and increases in workload. The vast majority of these decisions are also oral, meaning transcribing services would need to be resourced and serviced.

That is probably correct if it is done internally. Given that the Courts are an arm of Government I would have thought that the obligation of making law available to the people in a free and democratic society would be something that should be provided at a reasonable cost. In the overall scheme of things $1 million is a small price to pay for transparent justice.

 Considering there is essentially no precedent value (i.e. decisions do not bind the higher courts, and they are often just a straight declaration of sentence rather than reasoning) in the decisions made by the District Court, the time, effort and resource that transcribing would take would add little value to access to justice.

This is a red herring. True, the decisions of a District Court are not binding on the higher courts although they can be helpful if the issue has been considered below and needs to be critiqued on appeal or in other proceedings higher up the hierarchy. Precedent brings with it consistency, and a consistent approach has been a touchstone of our justice system. By and large, like cases should be treated alike. And so it is that the availability of District Court decisions enhances consistency. Not only do the public get a chance to see that a consistent approach has been adopted. Lawyers are able to access to database to properly advocate a position based on earlier similar outcomes thus maintaining and ensuring consistency.

I can recall that for many years counsel and law researchers have struggled with the fact that sentencing decisions of the District Court in Health and Safety prosecutions, Fisheries prosecutions and other prosecutions by Government departments have not been available so that a position may be advocated on the basis of earlier cases or clients can be advised of likely outcomes. A central database of decision would have been helpful in this regard.

Furthermore, to say that a sentencing decision is just a straight declaration of sentence rather than reasoning may happen for a run of the mill excess blood alcohol case, but the minute a judge is looking at anything more than a fine or low level community work, a complex analytical process is required involving identifying the circumstances of the offence, culpability levels, aggravating and mitigating circumstances both of the offence and the offender along with adjustments for guilty pleas, remorse and the like and stating them. All of these are very valuable in ensuring consistency of approach as appeal courts have often observed.

So to say that there is little value added to access to justice completely ignores the importance of consistency of approach in the decisions of the Courts which can be better informed by making decisions available online for the public and lawyers, rather than being closeted on an internal database.

 To argue that all 15,000 final decisions should be made online simply for the sake of it would require significant funds and resources. That would mean less money for supporting victims, putting police on the beat, and keeping our communities safe.

For the reason just articulated – consistency of approach – the decisions would not be there “simply for the sake of it”

 It’s worth noting that the judiciary have launched a new website (www.districtcourts.govt.nz<http://www.districtcourts.govt.nz>) which has started publishing judicial decisions from the District Courts. Criteria for publication in the criminal jurisdiction include sentencing notes and reserved decisions from judge-alone trials in cases of more serious offending, or cases where there has been discussion of high-level principles.

I have already commented on this. A commendable judge-led move but there are certain self-limiting factors imposed for the very reason the Minister identified earlier in her statement

All decisions resulting from proceedings brought under the Harmful Digital Communications Act will be published automatically because this is a requirement of that legislation.”

As they should be, along with all the other decisions of the District Court.

Is there an alternative way to comply with the former Clause 401? Yes there is.

Perhaps the Minister and her Department could have considered taking the online dissemination of judgments out of the hands of her Ministry and the Judiciary and, as is done in Australia and England where decisions are automatically made available to the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AUSTLII) or the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII), direct the necessary funding and the database of decision to the New Zealand Legal Information Institute (NZLII) who have established expertise in this area. The resources that would be freed up in the Ministry could be translated into funding for NZLII to provide the service. It is not hard. It has been done elsewhere. There is no need to re-invest the wheel. I have advocated such an outcome for years. Once again, an opportunity has been lost.

 

Live Streaming the High Court

The United States’ efforts to extradite Kim Dotcom and his associates from New Zealand has provided a fertile field for litigation and interpretation of the law. Issues such as the validity of search warrants and whether and to what extent there should be disclosure of information in addition to the Requesting State’s Record of the Case have been as far as the Supreme Court.

Last year the District Court conducted an Eligibility Hearing – a hearing which considers whether or not the Request for Extradition conforms with legal requirements. If so, the matter is passed on to the Minister who will make an Order for Extradition. The hearing concluded that Mr Dotcom and his associates were indeed eligible for extradition.

Unsurprisingly there has been an appeal against that decision, together with an application for judicial review and the appeal commenced before the High Court on 29 August. The case has been set down for four weeks

In yet another ground-breaking development an application to live stream the argument was made on behalf of Mr Dotcom and after argument and opposition from the United States, the application was granted, subject to conditions. The decision of Justice Gilbert can be found here.

This is the first occasion that the proceedings of the High Court have been live streamed – indeed, it is the first time that any New Zealand Court proceedings have been live streamed. There is a considerable amount of interest world-wide in the case, although that said it should be noted that the appeal is highly technical and involves lawyers putting their cases and developing their legal arguments. If you are looking for high drama this is not the place, but if you enjoy highly nuanced and carefully developed legal argument, it is certainly worth a look. The stream is on Youtube Live and the last URL is here.

Live streaming Court proceedings happens in other parts of the world. The UK Supreme Court live streams its  proceedings and archives them as well so that, as Lord Neuberger said, “justice may be seen to be done at a time that suits you.” Other appellate Courts live stream. The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals live streams argument – all part of open justice and bringing the proceedings of the Court to the people using new communications technologies.Courts such as the US Supreme Court have yet to follow.

Is this likely to become the norm in New Zealand? That is difficult to say. The In-Court Media Guidelines certainly don’t prohibit live streaming but whether or not we are going to see a live stream of a full-scale trial will depend upon a number of factors. An appellate argument involves only the lawyers. No one is giving evidence. There is no cross-examination. There are no issues of privacy or witness anonymity that could be claimed by participants – be they members of the jury or witnesses. A whole range of different factors will have to be taken into account.

Nevertheless, the decision to live stream in and of itself is significant and important. As an example of access to an arm of government – the Court in action – it is excellent and furthers the concept of open justice. It allows anyone with a computer and an internet connection anywhere to see the High Court in action conducting a hearing, minute by minute. That is a dramatic step forward in bringing the business of the Court to the people and is an example of the enabling power of the Internet – a great step forward for the New Zealand Courts.