Access to Justice and the Information Society

In 2000, the British lawyer Richard Susskind predicted that in five years, people would have more access to the Internet than to justice in the United Kingdom. Subsequently, the author confirmed his prediction and created others about the impact of new technologies on society and in the exercise of legal careers.

One of these impacts would be access to justice. This is because, in the current context, access is hampered by the lack of knowledge of the law, which is still very hermetic to people without legal training; The costs and slowness of procedural systems; The combative and exhausting aspect of disputes; And the very specific procedure and the restricted language. Technologies would serve to overcome this scenario insofar as people would have more access to information, in a form of jurisdictional empowerment, and could rely on diverse tools for conflict resolution, operationalized and democratized by technological innovations. In addition, cost and time decrease when new mechanisms are employed.

Access to justice

In pointing out the introduction of technologies and their use in conflict’s solutions, Susskind also presents considerations about access to justice itself. According to him, the more traditional notion of access to justice as resolved disputes does not fully reach the complexity of contemporary reality. In this sense, considering access to justice would also involve containing and avoiding conflicts. The first aspect is to prevent existing disputes from growing and the second concerns the risk management of claims adjudication.

Finally, the author still understands what he calls “legal health” as an element of access to justice. This means that in addition to solving, containing and avoiding conflicts, there will be access to justice also when they are prevented and thus, the people obtain the benefits and gains to which they are entitled, in the parameters of legality.

The recognition of the need to ask for a form of conflict resolution, the right and conscious selection of the service, as well as its efficient delivery are the factors pointed out by Susskind that would influence the effectiveness of access to justice. It would also be in these points the influence of new technologies to optimize access parameters.

One step back

While many of Richard Susskind’s predictions about the impact of technology on society have been confirmed and his ideas about expanding access to justice make sense, they seem optimistic and still a little distant, especially to the developing world. There, before talking about expanding access to justice through the use of new technologies, it is necessary to discuss access to them.

Access to the Internet, which forms the basis of many (if not all) of the tools employed in a possible scenario of better access to justice, is not yet a homogeneous reality either in the world or within countries. It is estimated that more than half of the world’s population still does not even have access to the Internet, although it has already been recognized as a fundamental right and mechanism of economic and social development.

Moreover, the internet connection itself, or access to any other tool, is not synonymous of inclusion. That is, although the number of people connected was more promising in Brazil and in the world, this does not mean that they use better forms of recognition, selection and service, as Susskind points out. It is recognized that technology implies changes throughout the society and its systems of organization and operationalization. However, we need a step back to recognize that these changes do not reach everyone in the same way and at such a speed. Concerns about access to the Internet and other technologies seem, in this sense, prior to the effects of their employment on access to justice.

See also:

SUSSKIND, Richard; SUSSKIND, Daniel. The future of the professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts. Oxford University Press, USA, 2015.