Global Judicial Integrity Network Updates Special Edition 'Views' Review | Page 8

VIEWS
Is ‘Open Justice’ possible?
Judge Tula del Moral has been serving as a first instance judge in Buenos Aires, Argentina since 2015. She
previously served as a Deputy Prosecutor from 2010-2013 and has been teaching law at the University of
Buenos Aires since 2000.
In Argentina, the justice
system is going through
a crisis of trust and
legitimacy. One of the
reasons for this crisis is that
access to justice presents
numerous difficulties that
are aggravated by the
lack of public policies that
strengthen transparency, accountability and
citizens’ participation in the judiciary.
In line with the Bangalore Principles of
Judicial Conduct and the provisions for
its implementation, we believe that public
confidence in the justice system is of the
utmost importance in a modern and democratic
society. It is also essential that judges honour
jurisdictional functions and actively work to
promote transparency in the judiciary.
Therefore, it is our duty to echo the citizens’
claims and to set out concrete actions to create
a new way of administering justice in our
country.
The management system of the Judiciary of
Buenos Aires is in line with the idea of open
government. This is based upon three mutually
reinforcing pillars:
1) the strengthening of democratic institutions
through the implementation of an open data
policy and accountability;
2) the modernization and innovation of the
work system using information technology and
3) the facilitation of access to justice through
the use of clear language.
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Within this framework, we are implementing
innovative strategies and mechanisms to
provide a quick, efficient and transparent
justice response. For instance, we have
created a Twitter account that has an open
data repository where we publish anonymized
sentences and resolutions aimed to facilitate
access to them. We have also published the
court hearing agendas, statistics about the
court’s activity, background information on
each member of the court and the results of
performance evaluation surveys filled out by
the public regarding court activities.
We are implementing innovative
strategies and mechanisms to
provide a quick, efficient and
transparent justice response.
Experience has shown us that most citizens
do not understand the language of the law,
so we have decided to modify the way we
communicate with the public. Consequently,
we have adopted a clear language, and we have
undertaken the pedagogical task of providing
videos on our YouTube channel, as well as
diverse publications that explain the meaning
of technical terms and legal procedures to
citizens.
Thus, through open communication with society
and the publication of information related to our
daily work, we seek accountability and promote
citizens’ participation in the judiciary. We aim