Digitalisation and Justice
This project aims to analyze the judiciary's engagement with notions of transparency and neutrality by examining the use of cameras in the courtroom, the implementation of new audio-visual (AV) technologies and the recordings they produce, and the digitization of the courts. Fieldwork in New Delhi was conducted in March 2023 through court observations and interviews with stakeholders, including Supreme Court judges, senior advocates, Supreme Court registrars and AV staff, journalists and academics. Fieldwork in the UK Supreme Court was completed in 2023-24, again through interviews with judges and court observations.
Traditionally, all of the selected courts have allowed limited camera access into the courtroom. Policies have tended to range from allowing filming of the verdict only to a complete ban on cameras in the courtroom. The live broadcasting of trials marks a new era for cameras in the courtroom in all the selected jurisdictions. This project focuses on; datafication and digitalisation of the justice procedure and its consequences, the reterritorialisation of justice by the courts from material to digital, physical to virtual and the implications of this transformation, how mechanisms of digital capture or datafication shape the exercise of justice as mechanisms of surveillence and recording.
The project is a collaboration between Dr Ozan Kamiloglu (LSBU) and Dr Kanika Sharma (SOAS), supported by LSBU and SOAS seed funds and the Socio-Legal Studies Association. Further info here.
