There has been a lot of debate about whether the Courts take up of remote hearings is fair on litigants or lawyers. Whereas they can have advantages such as saving time, the environment and travel, they can also be more intense and it may be more difficult to ascertain the veracity of evidence. There are also problems with accessibility, privacy and transparency. How else though can the Courts avoid a huge backlog of cases? Now that the genie is out of the bottle, will the Courts ever be the same again? One thing is for sure, I have had no problems with attending Court by telephone or by Skype (except perhaps the difficulty of managing other people at home) so I think I would be happy to carry on with this means of working as an additional method. I don’t think it is suitable in all cases, however.
Interesting articles about the Courts use of technology were published in the Law Society Gazette.