COVID-19 and Courts: An Exploration of the Impacts of the Pandemic on Case Processing and Operations

The COVID-19 pandemic instantly changed the day-to-day practices of the criminal justice system. The court system, traditionally reliant on face-to-face interaction, had to quickly alter operations to decrease the virus' spread while remaining functional as an integral role in the criminal justice system. The current exploratory study examines the response strategies U.S. court systems implemented, impacts on case processing, case backlogs, and additional consequences endured due to the pandemic. Using responses from self-report surveys of court staff (e.g., judges, clerks), results indicated that courts prioritized the types of cases heard and implemented multiple mitigation strategies that were deemed effective, some of which may be sustainable post-pandemic. Despite an increase in virtual jury trials and hearings, many courts saw a surge in backlogged cases and complications in assembling juries. The overall findings may inform judiciary policy and practice concerning short and long-term pandemic outcomes on court processing and future pandemic preparedness.

COVID-19 and the family courts: key practitioner findings in children cases

In March 2020, stringent social distancing measures were introduced across England and Wales to reduce the spread of Covid-19. These measures have presented significant challenges for the family justice system. This article sets out the findings of interviews conducted with professionals in the North East of England who have represented or otherwise supported litigants in private and public children proceedings since social distancing measures were introduced. The findings reveal that whilst practitioners are broadly positive about their experiences of shorter non-contested hearings, they nonetheless have concerns about the effectiveness of remote/hybrid hearings in ensuring a fair and just process in lengthy and complex cases. In particular, the findings indicate that the move to remote hearings has exacerbated pre-existing barriers to justice for unrepresented and vulnerable litigants. The aims of this article are not to ‘name and shame' any particular court but to highlight evidence of good practice in the North East of England and provide scope for improving practitioners' and litigants' experiences within current restrictions.

The impact of COVID-19 on women and children in the UK who were victims of domestic abuse: a practitioner perspective

PurposeThis study aims to explore the impact of COVID-19 on women and children in the UK who were victims of domestic abuse.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw from their experiences of working in the domestic abuse sector to reflect on the impact of lockdown restrictions on women and children, focussing on the impact of government restrictions that created an environment in which abusers could control the movement of victims.FindingsThe impact of the pandemic was significant as victims were locked into the abuse, unable to escape for fear of breaching lockdown rules. The lockdown affected victims of different forms of violence against women and girls in the UK including forced marriage and female genital mutilation, which highlighted the ramifications of intersectional inequalities for abuse victims.Originality/valueThis paper articulates the devastating impact of the pandemic on vulnerable women, and their fair and just access to the family courts. This paper concludes that women were failed by the government and that there was not nearly enough support from support agencies, which has left many at risk and suffering significant harm.

ZOOMING OUR WAY OUT OF THE FORUM NON CONVENIENS DOCTRINE

The effects of the pandemic have shed light on the evolution of technology in the legal space, including the use of technology in videoconferencing proceedings and facilitating court procedures. Despite the benefits associated with technology, the rapid adoption of videoconferencing proceedings in courts may have unprecedented impacts on the relevance and practicality of the forum non conveniens doctrine. Additionally, the drastically different approaches that federal courts have taken in response to the disproportionate geographic effects of the pandemic may give way to forum shopping. Plaintiffs may be more incentivized to bring their cases to forums that allow for videoconferencing proceedings as a strategic way to circumvent a defendant's potential forum non conveniens argument in a motion to dismiss. This Note argues that videoconferencing technology allows courts to effectively transcend the restrictions of geography while mitigating arguments about the relative convenience of different forums. Creating more uniform rules for videoconferencing proceedings will ensure easier predictability and uniformity in the forum non conveniens analysis. Specifically, this Note recommends that Congress and the courts mandate standardized technological videoconferencing requirements and adopt the original understanding of the forum non conveniens doctrine for lower courts to more explicitly consider the benefits of technology when making a forum non conveniens determination.

Through the prism of the right to housing: first notes for a critical constitutional analysis

The essay investigates the constitutional dimension of the right to housing, through the study of its foundation in the Constitution and the constitutional jurisprudence. The perspective adopted is broad and approaches the fundamental right from different angles: general recognition, relationships between property and social function, house rents and blocking of evictions in the Covid-19 era, State-Region competences in the management of policies for the right to housing, access to public housing. The thesis put forward is that it is necessary to adopt an institutionalist theory of fundamental rights to guarantee the effectiveness of the right to housing, which involves a contextualized reading of the constitutional system and is not limited to the individualistic dimension of the right. In fact, this approach involves, on one hand, the political-legal need to regulate urban conflict and, on the other hand, the constitutional need for the intervention of public powers in economy, in order to rebalance the socio-economic disparities that arise and are perpetuated in the urban dimension. © 2023, Societa Editoriale Federalismi s.r.l.. All rights reserved.

Limitation of rights in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic: a view from Kosovo's Constitutional Court's 'shaky' jurisprudence

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments across the globe to take infection-control actions by and large unforeseen and unforeseeable in their constitutional frameworks. Several measures forcing restrictions on travel, business operations, labour, healthcare and/or the education system have characterised public policy in most of them. A fair number of those restrictions adopted in the form of government or legislature decisions are labelled as 'lockdown measures'. This article examines two recent cases ruled upon by the Constitutional Court of Kosovo (CCK or Court), whose primary aim was to pronounce on whether the Kosovo government's lockdown measures were compatible with the criteria authorising a limitation of fundamental rights. These two cases present an outstandingly activist attitude of the Court in controlling government behaviour in times of a pandemic outbreak, by primarily questioning the state's negative obligations in the face of freedom of movement, right to private and family life, and freedom of assembly;whereas positive obligations of the state with regard to the right to life and its associated right, the right to health, were neglected altogether. The article concludes that the mechanical interpretation which the two Court cases drew neither contributes to a richer substantive human rights protection, nor functionally elevates the concept of human rights in times of pandemic. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Human Rights is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The barriers to effective access to justice encountered by litigants in person in private family matters post-LASPO

In February 2019, some six years after the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) removed legal aid from a wide range of civil and family matters, the Government released its Post Implementation Review of the impact of LASPO and accompanying action plan. Publication is at a time when governmental policy extolling the virtues of mediation and online dispute resolution has the potential to have a profound effect on family law process. Against this background and having regard to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the family justice system, this paper discusses the findings of the author's qualitative study on the experiences of litigants in person in civil and family courts. It suggests a typology of litigants in person, explains how and where litigants in person in child arrangements proceedings seek advice and the significant access to justice barriers arising from the compulsory requirement to attend a MIAM before commencing proceedings and attending the fact-finding stage without representation. Ultimately, the paper offers fresh evidence of the harsh realities of litigating without representation in the family court, which despite espousing an inquisitorial process, remains adversarial in character.

The entanglements of the law, digital technologies and domestic violence in Seattle

This paper draws on a community-based participatory action research project located in Seattle - before and during the COVID-19 pandemic - to examine the unanticipated impact that the pandemic has had on reducing barriers for survivors of domestic violence seeking protection through the legal system. We draw on interviews with survivors and victim advocates, along with autoethnographic participant observation during Domestic Violence Protection Order (DVPO) hearings, to trace survivors' experiences navigating the DVPO process before and after its transition from an analogue to digital system. We situate this research at the intersection of legal and digital geographic scholarship to analyze how the law and digital technologies reinforce the spatial operation of power and exclusion, while they simultaneously provide emancipatory potential for women's experiences of security, legal subjectivity and emotional personhood. By focusing on how the courts' transition to a digital system affects the emotional personhood and legal subjectivity of domestic violence survivors, this paper advances feminist calls within legal and digital geographies scholarship that encourage more sustained engagement with feminist thought to understand the varied effects of the law and digital technologies – respectively – on gendered bodies.

Pandemic Procedures: Adapting Problem-Solving Court (PSC) Operations and Treatment Protocols During COVID-19

With an ongoing pandemic claiming hundreds of lives a day, it is unclear how COVID-19 has affected court operations, particularly problem-solving courts (PSCs) which have goals rooted in rehabilitation for participants in their programs. Even with practical recommendations from national organizations directing courts on how to manage COVID-19, whether and how PSCs met the needs of PSC participants during this time is underexplored. This study, drawn from a larger national study using a survey of PSC coordinators, examines the COVID-19 responses of PSCs to remain safely operational for participants. A sub-sample of survey respondents (n = 82 PSC coordinators) detailed how the COVID-19 pandemic led to changes to their court and treatment operations amidst the constraints of the pandemic. The courts' shifts in policy and practice have important impacts for court participants' treatment retention and success in the PSC program, and these shifts need more in-depth research in the future.

Analysis Of The Scope Of India's Virtual Court Hearings

With the increasing internet accessibility in India and the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the practice of virtual court hearing has been accelerated in India. The virtual Court acts as an effective means to conduct Court proceedings, debarring geographical barriers and uplifting Courtroom functioning's productivity. Along with the practical applicability of virtual court hearings in India comes the glitches or challenges posed by the virtual hearing of matters. Nonetheless, the necessity of physical hearing of matters cannot be ignored. In pursuance of this, arguments in favor of reverting towards physical hearings after the pandemic situation ends are being posed before the Indian Judiciary, which negates the applicability of virtual courtrooms. Thereby, this article aims to analyze the applicability, necessity and efficacy of virtual court hearings and the challenges posed by Virtual Court hearings in India.Copyright © 2020 Ubiquity Press. All rights reserved.

A Garden of Marvels: Tales of Wonder from Early Medieval China by Robert Ford Campany (review)

The category of zhiguai (accounts of the strange) texts is diverse, encompassing a wide variety of anecdotes, historical records, memoirs, letters, temple inscriptions, and biographies, among others, that recount encounters with sacred, ordinary, and apotropaic objects, shapeshifting animals, ghosts, demons, local gods, and numinous beings such as Daoist transcendents or the Buddha, Buddhist practitioners, deities and supernatural creatures;visits to otherworldly places such as the court of judgment in the afterlife, hidden villages of immortals or enlightened beings à la James Hilton's Shangri-la or the Tibetan mythical kingdom of Shambhala, or even heaven or hell;and unaccountable phenomena such as bizarre dreams, premonitions, and miraculous occurrences, including surviving entombment and the return from death (xxviii). Mordicai Gerstein's children's book Carolinda Clatter (2005), with its description of a giant's sleeping body becoming a mountain with forests, caves, and waterfalls, mirrors the cosmogonic myth of Pangu, whose body parts become the world in item 85 (58 and 59). The eerie feel of the scene in C. S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew (1955), where Digory Kirke enters the Garden to pluck an apple from the Tree of Knowledge to protect Narnia, is highly reminiscent of item 47 (35), where uninvited intruders eat their fill of otherworldly fruit from a remote orchard but are admonished by an unseen voice in midair to drop the fruit they intended to take with them.

Conservative government penal policy 2015-2021: Austerity, outsourcing and punishment redux?

This book interrogates Conservative government penal policy for adult and young adult offenders in England and Wales between 2015 and 2021. Government penal policy is shown to have been often ineffective and costly, and to have revived efforts to push the system towards a disastrous combination of austerity, outsourcing and punishment that has exacerbated the penal crisis. This investigation has meant touching on topical debates dealing with the impact of resource scarcity on offenders' experiences of the penal system, the impact of an increasing emphasis on punishment on offenders' sense of justice and fairness, the balance struck between infection control and offender welfare during the government handling of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and why successive Conservative governments have intransigently pursued a penal policy that has proved crisis-exacerbating. The overall conclusion reached is that penal policy is too important to be left to governments alone and needs to be recalibrated by a one-off inquiry, complemented by an on-going advisory body capable of requiring governments to 'explain or change'. The book is distinctive in that it provides a critical review of penal policy change, whist combining this with insights derived from the sociological analysis of penal trends. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Life During COVID for Court-Involved People

Data from a unique survey of court-involved New Yorkers collected during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 provides evidence for a cycle of disadvantage involving penal control, material hardship, and health risk. We find evidence of chaotic jail conditions from March to May 2020 in the early phase of the pandemic, and high levels of housing and food insecurity, and joblessness for those leaving jail or with current criminal cases. The highest levels of material hardship—measured by housing insecurity, unemployment, shelter stays, and poor self-reported health—were experienced by those with mental illness and substance use problems who had been incarcerated.

The Impact of Remote Hearing Policies on Racial Equity in Criminal Case Outcomes During the Pandemic

The criminal justice system confronted unprecedented challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, court systems nationwide quickly instituted policies to enable criminal cases to proceed while protecting public health. The shift toward criminal hearings by videoconference or teleconference has persisted. All fifty states now conduct criminal hearings remotely. Yet evidence about how remote proceedings affect case outcomes remains sparse. Using data for all arrests and criminal case dispositions that occurred in California between 2018 and mid-2021, I characterize the impact the pandemic had on arrest and case resolution rates, estimate the impact of adopting policies to permit remote hearings on conviction and sentencing outcomes, and determine which factors contributed to racial differences in outcomes. Remote hearing policies contributed to racial inequalities in outcomes, which predated the pandemic and persisted amid it.

Remote Justice in Coronavirus Crisis - Do the Means Justify the Ends, or Do the Ends Justify the Means?

The coronavirus related crisis affected severely all aspects of life and judiciary is no exception. The world has been confronted with new challenges. New circumstances have created significant impact on the functioning of access to justice. New ways of administrating the legal system were introduced in the last decade, allowing for the use of the means of electronic communication, reducing certain stages of court procedures, opting for solutions for peaceful dispute settlement and promoting out-of-court dispute resolution. However, the coronavirus caused, beyond any doubt, severe delays in court proceedings and even shut down courts in some European Union Member States, Croatia included. Thus, additional efforts were required in order to ensure remote justice to citizens and businesses. More importantly, it called for a swift response, issuing and applying emergency measures, to safeguard the right to access courts and provide for effective administration of justice. The paper thus seeks to explore the ways in which European Union Member States responded to emerging challenges and the consequences these challenges had on administration of justice. Croatian example will be introduced specifically due to obvious struggles in handling the coronavirus caused difficulties in national judiciary system. Along with the analysis of measures taken, there are several questions, which need to be answered. What was the level of readiness of the Member States' judiciaries for providing justice by means of electronic communications, with Croatia in focus? What are the effects of measures taken in Croatian judiciary system? Should it be left to the courts or other competent bodies to take actions on a case-to-case basis in order to provide the necessary protection of procedural rights to parties? In terms of the effect of the emergency measures, do they allow for the same or similar quality of remote justice? In conclusion, the paper will try to answer the aforementioned questions, deliberate on the efficiency of measures taken in response to the coronavirus crisis, with Croatia in focus and possibilities of future improvements.

Challenging Court Landscapes and Opportunities for Change

Courts are complex institutions which must constantly adjust to ensure that they are fulfilling their responsibilities to defendants, victims, witnesses, society and others who enter court spaces either virtually or physically. Courts must also manage their relationships with other agencies (whether justice or community) on whom they rely. Courts face an array of challenges in contemporary Australia, including the COVID-19 pandemic which has necessitated courts to pivot from inherently complex systems which are primarily public facing to virtual spaces which must continue to maintain the rule of law and to be open, transparent and subject to scrutiny. This chapter considers other challenges, too, which various courts and those who work in, with or appear before are facing. It assesses a suite of potential micro and macro reforms, advocating for ongoing systemic and structural change. © The Editor(s)(if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Abortion Restrictions Threaten All Reproductive Health Care Clinicians

The Supreme Court's decision on Dobbs vJackson will have an impact on reproductive health care provision for years to come, not only where abortion care is now restricted but across the country. As of January 2023,14 states have outlawed or severely restricted abortion.1 Morbidity and mortality around the time of labor is already on the rise nationally, from 658 in 2018 to 861 in 20202-particularly in places where abortion is restricted and labor care is increasingly sparse because of loss of the workforce after the COVID-19 pandemic.3 It is important to understand how the criminalization of abortion providers will affect all other forms of reproductive health care moving forward.In states where abortion care is currently severely limited, clinicians who provide abortion care face criminalization that can include insurmountable legal fees, loss of their medical license, and even imprisonment. Abortion restrictions create a duality in which providers feel they must serve as agents of the state-reporting any suspicious pregnancy-related issues-or have their license called into question, all while trying to best help their patients. Since these laws took effect, we are already seeing delays in health care services for patients needing early pregnancy care management-for abortion as well as miscarriage management and ectopic pregnancies.4 Health care providers may be called on to increase surveillance and report signs of abortion that can violate their protection of HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) rights, while also facing malpractice claims if they, by delaying or denying early pregnancy care management, are providing what medical evidence shows to be substandard care.

The Sabbath Observer, the Idiosyncratist, and the Religious Organization: How the EEOC Imagines Religion at Work

Charged with enforcing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plays an overlooked but profoundly important role in shaping American religious life. While scholars of religion, law, and American culture have devoted a great deal of energy to analyzing the ways that federal courts define religion for the purposes of protecting it, they have paid less attention to the role of administrative agencies, like the EEOC. In this article, I argue that the private workplace offers a critical site for understanding how the state regulates and manages American religious life. I look to the EEOC's regulatory guidelines and compliance manuals as important sources for understanding the shifting relationship between religion, law, and work in the United States. I identify three modes of religiosity—or three types of religious actors—existing in tension in the EEOC archive, each bearing a distinct genealogy: the Sabbath Observer, the Idiosyncratist, and the Organization. While gesturing to very different notions of what religion is, the figures of the Idiosyncratist and the Organization both assume that demands of religion and work can be neatly reconciled. They presume that religion can be seamlessly integrated into the workplace without disrupting the functioning of capitalism. However, for those concerned about economic inequality, corporate power, and neoliberal working conditions, I suggest that it may be useful to revisit the EEOC's Sabbath Observer, who insists on the right to collective forms of life and value outside of work and the market.

Smallpox Immunization in Colonial America: All Too Relevant Today

Smallpox Immunization in Colonial America: All Too Relevant Today The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution By Andrew Wehrman Baltimore, MD:Johns Hopkins Press;2022 Hardcover: 401 pp;$32.00 ISBN-10: 1-4214-4466-6 ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-4466-6

How the Judiciary Has Driven Systemic Innovation During the Pandemic

In 1998, the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA)8 urged member state courts throughout the United States to join a national effort to exchange data and integrate information systems in ways that would improve case management.9 COSCA issued a position paper on information sharing in 2002,10 followed by joint resolutions adopted by the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ)11 and COSCA that called for public access to electronic court records and removal of Social Security numbers from court records.12 In 2004, COSCA joined with the National Association for Court Management (NACM)13 to issue a policy statement for court acceptance of information technology.14 It established a "nine part agenda" that emphasized serving the court's business needs, stressed the importance of effective implementation, and addressed security and privacy issues.15 A series of incremental resolutions followed over several years, including one from the CCJ entitled "The Emergence of E-Everything. The Landscape of Civil Litigation determined that nonfamily civil litigation in state courts "takes too long and costs too much," which undermined access to justice.18 Court dockets were dominated by "lowervalue contract and small claims" cases that rarely were adjudicated on the merits.19 Courts were using outdated automated case management systems, and they were giving self-represented parties (involved in 76% of cases) and lawyers too much control over the pace of litigation.20 The Landscape of Civil Litigation lamented the decline in funding for court systems and observed that courts were expected to dispense more justice using fewer resources.21 B.The Call to Action in Civil Cases One year later, the NCSC published its influential Call to Action: Achieving Civil Justice for All22 That report built upon the Landscape of Civil Litigation and criticized the "cost, delay, and unpredictability of civil litigation" under existing court processes.23 It recommended that courts update differentiated case management processes to assign cases to three "pathways," which it designated as "Streamlined," "Complex," and "General. "31 States should design courthouses that incorporate emerging changes in technology.32 Six months before the CCJ and COSCA endorsed the Call to Action, the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates approved the ABA Model Regulatory Objectives for the Provision of Legal Services (Model Regulatory Objectives).33 The Model Regulatory Objectives were drafted by the ABA's Commission on the Future of Legal Services not long before it released its innovative and controversial 2016 Report on the Future of Legal Services in the United States 24 The Model Regulatory Objectives provided guidelines for state courts to regulate nontraditional legal services providers, and discouraged blanket exclusions of nonlawyers based on unauthorized practice of law rules.35 The CCJ agreed, and resolved that state courts should consider broadening their regulatory frameworks to nonlawyers who provide legal services.36 Expanding the regulatory framework would give courts greater flexibility to implement the Call to Action21 In 2011, the NCSC advised state courts on how to automate court processes so that information technology could help assign cases to one of the three pathways.38 Pathway assignments should be data-driven and involve less human discretion. The NCSC joined in partnership with the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS)41 and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ)42 to launch the Family Justice Initiative (FJI).43 The FJI would operate in collaboration with the CCJ and COSCA to build upon the research contained in the Landscape of Civil Litigation and the policy directives in the Call to Action 44 While the FJI was ramping up its operations, the NCSC issued a 2017 white paper that examined existing case management systems in family courts throughout the United States, titled Triage Protocols for Divorce and Child Custody Cases.45 The white paper noted "tension between what should ideally be done, what courts can afford to do, and what litigants want," and that courts may need to "identify[] 'good enough' solutions" that are more feasible due to resource limitations.46 "As long as budget constraints exist, a court that provides more services to one case is essentially reducing services in another case, so some sense of cost/benefit is definitely helpful in making these kinds of service and process tradeoffs. .