Justice in the Digital State: Assessing the Next Revolution in Administrative Justice by JoeTomlinson (Bristol: Policy Press, 2019, 97 pp., £12.99 (pbk))
| Author | Michael Adler |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12219 |
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
JUSTICE IN THE DIGITAL STATE: ASSESSING THE NEXT REVOLUTION
IN ADMINISTRATIVE JUSTICE by JOE TOMLINSON
(Bristol: Policy Press, 2019, 97 pp., £12.99 (pbk))
For centuries, the judicial system has enabled the parties in dispute and/or
their legal representatives to present evidence and arguments in support of
their claims, and to dispute those of the other side in person and in court,
after which a judge or, in criminal cases, a jury determines the outcome of
the case. Now all this is set to change. In future, most cases will be lodged
online, the parties in dispute, who will be located remotely, will be expected
to present their own cases and challenge those of the other side interactively,
and, after reviewing the case materials, a judge will identify the issues in
dispute and make a determination. Few people are aware of what lies in
store and, not least for this reason, this short book by Joe Tomlinson is very
much to be welcomed. Digitalization will have huge implications, not only
for administrative justice, on which the book focuses, but also for civil and
criminal justice.
In less than 100 pages, Justice in the Digital State presents three
well-crafted and thought-provoking case studies: the first deals with the
growing use of online crowdfunding platforms to fund judicial reviews of
government policies in the courts; the second focuses on the government’s
ambitious ‘transformation project’ which aims to digitalize court and tribunal
procedures; and the third analyses the use of new ‘agile’ methodologies in the
construction of digitalized administrative justice systems.
In an introductory chapter, Joe Tomlinsondraws attention to the importance
of evidence for institutional design and, in his first case study, he presents
some useful empirical data on the rapid expansion of crowdfunding since the
swingeing cuts to legal aid were introduced in 2012. However, the figures
are not broken down in any way and no estimates of how much of the total
has been used to fund judicial reviews are provided. If he had been able to
demonstrate that crowdfunding had given a boost to the number of judicial
reviews, he could have argued that it has promoted access to justice, but
even then it would not have followed that it has therefore given a boost
to administrative justice. Although a successful action of judicial review
identifies and strikes down the very small number of administrative decisions
that are clearly unlawful, it does not contribute anythingto improving the large
number of poor-quality administrative decisions that are nevertheless lawful.
Judicial review makes a very small contribution to administrative justice if
this is defined as the justice inherent in f irst-instance administrative decisions
and the effectiveness of the procedures that can be used to challenge them.
The second case study deals with the very ambitious plans to ‘modernize’
courts and tribunals that were published by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord
Chief Justice, and the Senior President of Tribunals in 20161but that have
1 Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Senior President of Tribunals
TransformingOur Justice System (2016).
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© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Law and Society published by John Wiley& Sons Ltd on behalf of Cardiff University (CU).
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