Lawyers lobby for virtual courtrooms

A group of more than 160 legal practitioners has written to the department of justice, motivating for the adoption of new technology that would allow for ‘virtual courtrooms’ during the lockdown – and beyond.

Gauteng-based lawyer Danie Swanepoel, who signed the correspondence on behalf of the group, said on Wednesday that while this technology could provide a solution to an urgent and pressing problem during the lockdown, it could also contribute to a more accessible justice system in general.

“We’ve got a lot of indigent persons who want to come to court and be heard,” Swanepoel said.

He said this technology could provide a platform from which these individuals could make virtual court appearances and that it would help them save on, for example, transport costs.

Swanepoel also said that it could be used in the children’s courts, where it could enable child witnesses to testify from the comfort of their own homes, thereby making the process less stressful and intimidating.

In their correspondence, which was emailed to Justice Minister Ronald Lamola on Monday, Swanepoel and his colleagues said the courts appeared to have “ground to a halt” during the lockdown.

“It seems clear that there are extremely valid reasons why many of the courts are not willing to risk the opening of the roll at present,” they said.

But they believed the current situation was “detrimental to the public, the economy of the country, the protection of citizens’ basic rights, the legal profession and the administration of justice”.

They proposed the use of products on offer by a company called Registered Communication and said these products could provide for the creation and implementation of “a uniform, practical, authenticated ‘transcribe-able’ and accessible platform and solution for a virtual courtroom … taking our judiciary and courts to a 21st-century level”.

“The solutions offered by this service provider are not only exceptional but also practical, ostensibly secure, easy to operate and may very well give greater ease of access to the courts for indigent citizens,” the practitioners said, “Registered Communications has already obtained the backing of a court and judiciary approved recording and transcription company which will be integrated into their platform”.

Spokesperson for the department of justice Chrispin Phiri said on Wednesday that Minister Ronald Lamola and the department had written to the Legal Professions Council to ascertain from them what the impact of Covid-19 had been on the legal profession.

“In addition, we have also asked about the impact of the directions gazetted by the department,” he said. “We have received this feedback and we are attending to the issues raised as well as the proposed solutions.”

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