Developments in digital technologies have induced profound changes in the way legal services and legal dispute resolution bodies operate. But little is known about how the use of digital technologies in the field of law affects access to justice (A2J) for individuals and businesses. Digital technologies are often seen as enhancing A2J. Yet, empirical research into the (presumed) advantages and disadvantages of the use of digital applications for A2J is lacking. The aim of this special issue is to contribute to the empirical evidence base.
The various contributions demonstrate that some types of digitalization provide better A2J because they broaden ways to contact institutions, make access cheaper or enable case processing in times of emergency, such as a pandemic. Despite these positive aspects, there are also challenges related to A2J, namely negative consequences of remote communication for the quality of procedures and participation of litigants; failure of technological solutions to deliver promised benefits; and difficulties of access for persons with poor digital capabilities or in vulnerable conditions.

It is often assumed that online dispute resolution is cheaper and faster for people seeking justice than litigation at court. Using empirical data from the public justice system in British Columbia, we examine the fees and case processing times of the Civil Resolution Tribunal and compare these with the Provincial Court and Supreme Court. Our case study yields both promising and discouraging results. Promising results pertain to the observation that online dispute resolution within the public justice system can be cheaper and faster, but this is not the case for all people seeking justice, and significant differences within the justice system are observed. In addition, important characteristics should be accounted for, in particular in debating the introduction of online dispute resolution platform in the public justice system as a replacement for a procedure at court.

Digitalisation of the public sector is advocated for as an efficient and responsive approach to the delivery of public services. In this article, we analyse the role of digitalisation from a bottom-up perspective as we zoom in on socially marginalised citizens’ access to welfare rights in the context of the digitalised Danish welfare state. In the Danish welfare state, the authority and responsibility to distribute welfare support rest mainly with the municipalities which thus play a significant role in the public sector infrastructure when it comes to ensuring efficient responses to citizens’ social problems. Yet, research suggests that citizens who lack legal and digital capabilities related to accessing welfare support in a digitalised welfare state may face challenges in this process. Drawing on observations of encounters between socially marginalised citizens and social workers who as intermediaries assist the citizens in the process of gaining access to welfare rights, and on semi-structured interviews with both parties, the article suggests that encounters between socially marginalised citizens and intermediaries can be decisive for citizens’ ability to access rights in the digitalised space of the welfare state.

This paper contributes to the relatively new field of research at the intersection of digitalization, access to justice, and administrative justice by exploring how the digital transformation shapes citizens’ access to public ombuds institutions worldwide. I empirically explore the possibilities citizens have both in the analogous and the digital sphere to access public ombuds in order to complain about maladministration or mistreatment by public bodies. I build on the literature on inequality in the digital state and access to justice as well as on institutional and service design, including personal encounters, and its role in shaping access to (administrative) justice. The study is based on a mixed-methods design, including qualitative interviews with and a survey among ombuds staff of member institutions of the International Ombudsman Institute as well as the quantitative analysis of all members’ websites. Since there has been no empirical data of this scope available to date, this paper presents first descriptive findings which future research can build on.

Psychiatric and psychological clinical assessment reports are presented in Australian courts for a range of significant legal proceedings including sentencing; when the state seeks to extend detention or supervision orders of high-risk offenders; and in mental health proceedings. In these contexts, clinical assessments play an epistemic role in constructing people-in-prison and, increasingly, medical professionals are conducting these assessments using remote access technologies such as audiovisual links. This article examines how digitalization processes in the criminal justice system are altering modes of conducting assessments of a vulnerable population: people-in-prison. Despite the growing ubiquity of remote clinical assessments of people-in-prison, this article finds, through content analysis of court decisions and a theoretical framework of digital criminology and digital vulnerability, some reservations regarding the remote mode.

In this article the role of the lawyer in criminal law, immigration detention law and asylum law is analysed in the context of digitalization measures during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the Netherlands.

Various authors have been conceiving digitalization as a way to modernize justice and improve legal issues, i.e. address delays, increase legal security and make justice cheaper and accessible for all. Such normative and techno-determinist discourse has justified several central and integrated projects carried out in Belgium since 1998, all of which have successively failed. In 2015, the former minister of justice changed his strategy: his plan called for the cooperation of legal professions and for their enrolment in the design, development and implementation of digital tools. This is how the Central Solvency Register, named RegSol (or the Register) was designed, developed and launched within the commercial courts in April 2017. The enrolment of legal professions seemed to be the solution to finally “modernize” the Belgian justice system after 20 years of trying. RegSol was supposed to make justice faster, more accessible and transparent. In this article, we show how and why most of these promises have not – yet – been fully met. Our research draws on two case studies conducted in a big (Alpha) and in a small (Delta) commercial court between November 2021 and February 2022. It shows that the various obstacles identified in the design and development phases hindered, to a certain extent, the platform’s potential to make justice more efficient and accessible. Everyday reality for court practitioners is not yet fully in line with the political promises. RegSol’s impact remains ambiguous: while simplifying tracking processes and centralizing information, it also entails new challenges.

During the first six weeks of the pandemic, hearings in Dutch (urgent) family cases continued online to minimize the spread of coronavirus. Courts would therefore contact litigants using a telephone, Skype or hybrid format, which created all kinds of participation challenges. This article researches to what extent litigants were able to effectively participate during these digital hearings, based on a qualitative analysis of 15 interviews with lawyers, judges and representatives of childcare institutions involved in digital and hybrid hearings during COVID-19. This qualitative analysis applies McKeever’s remote justice framework, the so-called ‘ladder of legal participation’, which measures litigant participation by focusing on their emotional, intellectual, practical and attitudinal barriers during hearings. An application of McKeever’s framework shows the variety of legal participation in urgent family hearings, as well as how a digital environment is able to change the participation barriers of traditional courtroom hearings. In order for litigants to climb the participation ladder, a more nuanced, sociological understanding of all participation levels is needed.