A fair trial in complex technology cases: Why courts and judges need a basic understanding of complex technologies

Computer law & security review, vol. 52, pp. 105935

Abstract

Technology is getting increasingly complicated. If complex technologies have the potential to cause harm, people may need protection. Such legal protection is increasingly available, but it is only effective if it can also be enforced in courts. If people do not understand what is happening, for instance, with their personal data, they may not go to court at all. When people go to court, they may encounter another problem: if also courts and judges have a limited understanding of how the complex technologies work, this can affect the right to a fair trial. In this paper, it is argued that a fair trial requires that courts and judges need to have sufficient understanding of the technology in cases on which they are ruling. Since not all judges can be trained to have deep understanding of technology, other ways to address this are proposed.

Authors 1

1. Bart H. M. Custers corresponding Aachen eLaw - the Center for Law and Digital Technologies

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   eLaw - The Center for Law and Digital Technologies, Leiden University, The Netherlands