Establishing Unified Regulations to Publish Court Decisions (GE0051)

Establishing unified regulations to publish court decisions; Establishing unified regulations to publish court decisions aims to improve transparency, accountability and efficiency of the court system. This commitment indends to increase trust between a citizen and the court and also to improve access to information. The working group will develop a project aiming to define key directions and principles in publishing court decisions through unified system. The given project will be submitted to the High Council of Justice for its approval. Based on the unified regulations elaborated, the court decisions will be published on the court webpage. Date of Implementation: 2016-2017; Issues to be Addressed: Because there are no unified regulations concerning disclosure of personal data, the practice is inhomogeneous. In the framework of the third wave of the reform, in compliance with the Order of the Supreme Court Chairperson (Order #30-s/18.12.2015) a working group was formed that will develop main directions and principles for establishing a unified standard to improve court decision accessibility. The objective of the working group is to work out recommendations on the rules concerning issuance of general court decisions, also concerning the rules for anonymization of personal data for transferring them to the third person.

10. Establishing unified regulations to publish court decisions

Commitment Text:

Establishing unified regulations to publish court decisions aims to improve transparency, accountability and efficiency of the court system. This commitment intends to increase trust between a citizen and the court and also to improve access to information.

The working group will develop a project aiming to define key directions and principles in publishing court decisions through unified system. The given project will be submitted to the High Council of Justice for its approval.

Based on the unified regulations elaborated, the court decisions will be published on the court webpage.

In the framework of the third wave of the reform, in compliance with the Order of the Supreme Court Chairperson (Order #30-s/18.12.2015) a working group was formed that will develop main directions and principles for establishing a unified standard to improve court decision accessibility.

The objective of the working group is to work out recommendations on the rules concerning issuance of general court decisions, also concerning the rules for anonymization of personal data for transferring them to the third person.

Main objective – Improve accountability and transparency of the court system, also taking into account high public interest, improve information accessibility; publicity of the court decisions shall be ensured by observing international and national standards of the personal data protection.

Responsible institution: Supreme Court of Georgia

Supporting institution(s): General Courts, High Council of Justice of Georgia

Start date: July 2016 End date: December 2017

Commitment Aim:

Under this commitment, the Supreme Court aimed to develop key directions and unified standards for publishing court decisions online in a way that would allow easy reuse of this data. Before, there was no such unified standard and citizens often faced difficulties searching for court decisions online.

Status

Midterm: Limited

At the midterm, the commitment had limited implementation. In July 2016, the Supreme Court created a working group of representatives of Supreme, Appellate, and District Courts, as well as the Personal Data Protection Inspector, the High Council of Justice and local CSOs (the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, IDFI, TI, the Lawyers’ Association, and the Charter of Journalistic Ethics). This working group developed unified regulations in accordance with internationally recognized standards, including those on protecting personal data. The regulations were approved by the High Council of Justice on 12 September 2016, which published them on its website. However, due to the complexity of refining technical procedures for publishing decisions online and the lack of funds for expensive software necessary for the web design, the Court was unable to launch the unified portal. For more information, please see the 2016–2017 IRM midterm report.

End of term: Limited

The commitment’s implementation status remained limited at the end of term since the unified online portal was not launched. The Supreme Court plans to launch this portal by the end of 2018. The portal would allow users to find information relating to their court cases, such as court sessions, their schedule and minutes, and to download those documents in PDF format. The Court would also provide Application Programming Interface (API) to interested organizations for them to integrate the court data in their own systems. [30]

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Did Not Change

Given the Supreme Court was not able to launch the unified online portal to include court decisions published in a user-friendly way, there has been no change in the courts’ existing practice of openness.

Carried Forward?

The commitment was carried into the new Action Plan 2018−2019. The 2018−2019 plan includes the Supreme Court’s commitment, Commitment 9, to proactively publish court decisions in a unified database at http://info.court.ge. This redesigned portal would serve as a single registry of court decisions of all three tiers of courts: Supreme, Appellate, and District Courts. The portal’s new search system would contain the list of final court decisions, including those with the concealed parts and names; public notifications; separate sections for petitioners; and information about the appointed court sessions. [31]

CSOs recommend that the Supreme Court disclose data on criminal charges of public officials as well as information of organizations involved in the court disputes.

[31] Government of Georgia, Georgia Action Plan 2018-2019, Commitment 9 (OGP, 4 Dec. 2018), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/georgia-action-plan-2018-2019.