The Ways COVID-19 Impacted the Court Trials
It is hard to disagree that the sudden coronavirus threat has affected almost all spheres of everyday life, and the trials are not an exception. The governments “have moved court hearings (and even trials) online and the Scottish government has extended the exceptions to the hearsay rule to cover witnesses who cannot be in court because of Covid-19” (Nicolson, 2020, p. 207). In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the courts decided to adopt remote hearings rapidly, and a number of differences from the traditional way of holding hearings appeared.
In other words, a significant increase in the technology role in English and Welsh justice systems was necessitated by the coronavirus. Data from HMCTS “shows that the number of cases heard each day with the use of audio and video technology increased from fewer than 1000 in the last week of March to over 3000 by mid-April” (How has coronavirus impacted the justice system? 2020, para. 29). Interestingly, lawyers and the judiciary were mostly positive about the move to using audio and video channels even though the hearing process has changed dramatically (How has coronavirus impacted the justice system? 2020). On the contrary, for some lay participants, including defendants and witnesses, and vulnerable court users such as persons with cognitive difficulties or young people, remote hearings appear to be less satisfactory due to various reasons.
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Though the possibility of allowing the courts to continue working by adopting remote hearings is effective and positive, there are some disadvantages and uncertain factors. To begin with, the number of outstanding cases in the Crown Court and the magistrates’ courts has increased significantly (McCann, 2020). This rate was already high even before the coronavirus crisis began, but currently, the combined backlog for the mentioned courts is estimated to be more than half a million. Researchers note that “by contrast with some parts of the civil justice system, technology has not provided solutions to enable trials to go ahead in the courts at anything close to normal levels” (How has coronavirus impacted the justice system? 2020, para. 32). According to Nicolson (2020, p. 207), European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides “a right to a trial within a reasonable time as one of its rights to a fair trial”. That is why the justice system cannot grind to a halt due to the rules requiring social distancing and isolation, but the adopted measures, including remote hearings, are not perfect either.
Finally, though new and forced measures are rather effective and thoughtful, and the court cannot function in an ordinary course amidst the lockdown, it is recommended that HMCTS set out a specific policy. It needs to make sure that all court users, especially those of them who can be considered vulnerable, are comfortable with participating in and following virtual processes (Jacobson and Cooper, 2020). Currently, remote justice proceedings are a temporary measure, but if there is a likelihood that they may become permanent, several modifications need to be included.
Conclusion
To draw a conclusion, one may say that after becoming an online process, court hearings did not stop being severe and complicated. It is hard to disagree that a number of changes that were made to tribunals and courts since March 2020 and will be made later will probably have rather serious and long-term consequences. Moreover, some measures received limited debate and scrutiny before being enacted, which may be explained by the seriousness and suddenness of the circumstances. Due to these facts, it is necessary to subject all the changes to rigorous evaluation.