Online hearings of social security appeals are to be piloted in the autumn, the Senior President of Tribunals, Sir Ernest Ryder, has said.
In a speech to the Administrative Law Bar Association, ‘Justice in a Modern Way’, given last month but published this week, Sir Ernest said: ‘We are designing and trialling questions in plain language that build intuitive application forms using judges, our expert panel members, behavioural psychologists and volunteer users who are asked about the language people prefer to use.
‘From the autumn we will pilot digital evidence sharing with Department of Work and Pensions and asynchronous conversations so that we can conduct some live hearings without the need for a disabled user to face a difficult journey to a hearing room which many say they find threatening.’
Sir Ernest said some tribunals may trial live streaming in the interests of open justice, as currently takes place at the Supreme Court. He said the Court of Appeal Civil Division will trial live streaming in the next legal year.
Outlining the next stages of the courts and tribunal modernisation process, he said the Tax Chamber is trialling hearings where four different participants take part from four different locations. He suggested this could be used for some face to face hearings but would be best suited to case management hearings.
However, he emphasised that there was ‘no programme of “one size fits all”—each tribunal and court will use digital tools in different ways, respecting their specialist traditions and the needs of their users’.
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