| Title | Who Controls The Mute Button In Online Trials? | |
| Date | Sunday January 10 2021, @05:35PM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the dept. | ||
A lawyer at the Supreme Court of India, Mary Mitzy, asks in the Deccan Chronicle about who controls the right to actually speak in court during online trials: Specifically she asks, who controls the mute button in online court cases? Currently court does not meet in person and takes up only matters it deems urgent. The court is using a proprietary system for video conferencing, which would raise additional questions on SN, yet proprietary or not the matter of muting affects not only the outcomes of the trials but also the flow of justice.
Indian courts follow the system of an open court hearing. Everyone can watch the proceedings. But the Vidyo app has a limit in terms of the number of participants who can be admitted and the Supreme Court, too, came out with a notification restricting the advocates from sharing the link for appearance. It has affected mostly young advocates keen to learn court craft from watching the courts function.
But there's been worse happening. Many a time, during hearing a case, the advocate was logged out at the relevant moment and was unable to log in. This resulted in the case being decided in their absence. It is with great difficulty that one gets one's case listed for hearing and if it is decided in one's absence then one's entire effort becomes futile. On top of that, there is the pain of humiliation before one's client.
[...] Now, the cases heard by the Supreme Court have anywhere between two and 30 parties. Who decides who will be unmuted? A control room that has no idea about the proceedings of a case? Advocates keep sending requests to be unmated [sic] or for the senior advocate to be allowed to speak. But only if they are lucky will their request be granted before the case is over. Or else, you just count yourself to be on the "unlucky list".
[N.B. - This is from the opinion section of the site and pertains to the court system in India.]
| Links |
printed from SoylentNews, Who Controls The Mute Button In Online Trials? on 2024-04-19 10:53:03