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Copyright

David Tait; Meredith Rossner;

Published On

2024-11-06

Page Range

pp. 67–82

Language

  • English

Print Length

16 pages

4. Digital justice

Interactions and rituals in the virtual courtroom

Chapter of: Digital Humanities in the India Rim: Contemporary Scholarship in Australia and India(pp. 67–82)
Courts have increasingly made use of video technologies to allow witnesses and defendants to take part in hearings. This use increased dramatically as a result of COVID-19. Not only did individuals appear on screens in physical courtrooms, but courts themselves sometimes went virtual. We examine what happens to interactions and rituals when the physical courtroom disappears. We compare the standard form of video conference based on isolating participants into boxes in a gallery, with an alternative approach, the metaverse court, which brings participants together into a shared space.

Contributors

David Tait

(author)
Emeritus Professor of Justice Research at Western Sydney University
Honorary Professor in POLIS@ANU, Research School of the Social Sciences at Australian National University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1121-7702

Dr David Tait is Emeritus Professor of Justice Research at Western Sydney University and Honorary Professor in POLIS@ANU, Research School of the Social Sciences, Australian National University. He has led six experimental studies about court technologies and spaces, examining interactive visual evidence, remote witnesses, iPads for jurors, the prejudicial effect of the dock, distributed courtrooms (remote participants appearing in their ‘correct’ positions in the courtroom via video screens, with localised sound) and virtual courts. He is currently part of a project (in partnership with the Fraunhofer Institute and organised through the University of Montreal) developing an immersive virtual court platform for use in justice hearings and working out how this facility may impact on fairness, sense of presence and quality of communication.

Meredith Rossner

(author)
Deputy Director of the Research School of Social Sciences and Professor of Criminology at the Centre for Social Research & Methods at Australian National University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4744-8502

Dr Meredith Rossner is Deputy Director of the Research School of Social Sciences and Professor of Criminology at the Centre for Social Research & Methods at Australian National University. Her research focuses on emotions, rituals, the built environment, and technology in justice practices. Past and current projects include investigations into the emotional dynamics of restorative justice, therapeutic courts, the role of courtroom design on access to justice, and the use of video technology in courts. Meredith has published widely in the field of restorative justice, including Just Emotions: Rituals of Restorative Justice (2013). She is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Restorative Justice, a member of the Canberra Restorative Community and the Oceania Network of Restorative Practice for Sexual Harm.