tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post4774413500671327719..comments2023-08-10T15:02:51.259+01:00Comments on The Small Places: Balancing transparency with 'secrecy' in the Court of ProtectionLucy Serieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07820866715125284389noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-32698882082744851482012-02-27T21:44:13.005+00:002012-02-27T21:44:13.005+00:00Ah, thanks for the clarification. I didn't kno...Ah, thanks for the clarification. I didn't know all the transcripts you have are the official ones; I assumed the fact that you're sent them by parties involved meant that an official version wasn't available, and you were working with notes made by legal teams themselves.<br /><br />As you say, since all your material is in fact coming from the courts that also effectively makes redaction itself a non-issue.ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13057054783141319246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-15887084476022472032012-02-24T16:34:35.413+00:002012-02-24T16:34:35.413+00:00If it has been approved by a court then you don...If it has been approved by a court then you don't need to anonymise it. I've not given permission as such, as I don't have any rights in the transcripts: I just meant that we're all free to publish any of them. By contrast, for example, I think Bailii have copyright in their HTML versions. I sometimes get transcripts from barristers or solicitors before the court sends them to Bailii, but they usually end up there eventually. Most but not all 'legal professionals' are trustworthy: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hyman !Jonathanhttp://www.mentalhealthlaw.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-71965810810854294982012-02-24T11:29:40.096+00:002012-02-24T11:29:40.096+00:00Determining what "shouldn't be" publ...Determining what "shouldn't be" published is precisely the question; but it's not as if we'll be doing any independent investigations into cases, so it's unlikely that we'd end up with information in hand which hadn't been approved by a court.<br /><br />In saying that, perhaps it would be prudent to have a policy of only accepting documents from legal professionals, on the assumption that we can rely to an extent on their professional integrity and expertise in these matters.<br /><br />That would address the issue of personal trust as well. I picked <a href="http://mentalhealthlaw.co.uk/BB_v_AM_%282010%29_EWHC_1916_%28Fam%29" rel="nofollow">a random page on MHLO</a> and saw how you handle provenance, with a "Transcript provided by" line at the bottom, as well as the Contributors page. That's a very good idea; I would envisage us keeping the same information in principle, but probably in a different form (enabling semantic queries e.g. for "all transcripts submitted by solicitors" or "all transcripts received from barristers of X chambers").<br /><br />Thank you for the permission to use transcripts from MHLO. We might want to come back to you at a later time and be more explicit about what that entails:<br /><br />* For instance, official transcripts will be under Crown Copyright (or the copyright of the presiding judge(s), depending on who you talk to), so those would probably be fine.<br /><br />* Do you receive 'non-official' transcripts though, and what form do they take? If you do, do you have permission from the submitters to pass those on to the likes of us, to be distributed on another site? As I mentioned in a previous comment, an explicit Creative Commons license would simplify things. An <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/" rel="nofollow">Attribution-NonCommercial</a> or <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/" rel="nofollow">Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike</a> license might work well. The Creative Commons website has <a href="http://creativecommons.org/choose/" rel="nofollow">a tool for selecting an appropriate license</a>.<br /><br />As to case summaries, of course we wouldn't plagiarise your work. Not only is that antithetical to open web and open source principles, but as a law student it's beaten into me on a regular basis :-)<br /><br />Also as a law student though, I would like it if over time we accumulated a comprehensive set of case summaries, even if only community-contributed. Of course provenance information should be attached to those as well.ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13057054783141319246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-26387038334521202782012-02-23T22:04:20.971+00:002012-02-23T22:04:20.971+00:00The guidelines are not to publish any information ...The guidelines are not to publish any information or judgments that shouldn't be... If you want to anonymise a judgment for publication it should be done in conjunction with the court rather than independently. You can use any judgments that are on Mental Health Law Online. With new ones, even if transcribed, they usually say Crown Copyright. I don't think you want to publish case summaries in any event, but please don't plagiarise them or copy more than a small handful. Where are you getting your transcripts from? You would need personally to trust everybody that uploads anything for publication.Jonathanhttp://www.mentalhealthlaw.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-1266750704025785442012-02-21T16:12:00.645+00:002012-02-21T16:12:00.645+00:00I'll be at the DOJ event! Don't know about...I'll be at the DOJ event! Don't know about other COP types, don't know if they're aware of it? On MHLO, not really sue what the copyright situation is there, I expect that whole thing about the court's or the judges owning the copyright is relevant, but I've never really got my head around that. Probably best to ask Jonathan at MHLO, he know much more about these things!Lucy Serieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07820866715125284389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-18566907913234083182012-02-21T11:57:04.898+00:002012-02-21T11:57:04.898+00:00Thanks for the contacts! I don't know if anyon...Thanks for the contacts! I don't know if anyone from the CoP will be at the <a href="http://www.city.ac.uk/centre-for-law-justice-and-journalism/seminars-events/open-justice" rel="nofollow">digital open justice event</a> at the end of the month but I'll take it up with them if I meet any.<br /><br />I actually found this post because Judith Townsend quoted sections of it on the Judgmental mailing list. In the ensuing discussion it was suggested that we institute an upload facility (probably suitably moderated) like mentalhealthlaw.co.uk provides, and also use the corpus of cases they already have available there, contingent I suppose on receiving the suitable copyright permissions. To that end, it would be helpful if that website promoted the option to contributors of using a CC licence. Based on the conditions in their existing copyright notice <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/" rel="nofollow">CC-BY-NC</a> might be suitable.ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13057054783141319246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-61433738429011679652012-02-21T09:36:46.643+00:002012-02-21T09:36:46.643+00:00You might want to contact Jonathan Wilson at www.m...You might want to contact Jonathan Wilson at www.mentalhealthlaw.co.uk as he's got a lot of experience in these matters. I've also found the Court of Protection themselves are open to transparency promoting projects, so you could try contacting them?<br /><br />How were you planning to source the judgments themselves?Lucy Serieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07820866715125284389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-34434569705097448682012-02-21T09:13:37.758+00:002012-02-21T09:13:37.758+00:00Thanks for that. I'm not too worried actually ...Thanks for that. I'm not too worried actually if the answer is "use your common sense". If it's something we engage in with Judgmental, I'm sure a series of best practices will emerge over time.<br /><br />On the other hand, even 'professional' corporations and governments often get it wrong when it comes to data exposure. People not familiar with data protection and technology might not realise the relatively small amounts of personal data which can be used combinatorially with other sources and create a problem.<br /><br />If the Judgmental platform was made more interactive, it could actually be useful for CoP professionals to be able to flag parts of judgments which they feel may disclose undue information. It would be good to have your input if/when we get around to implementing something like that. Thanks!ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13057054783141319246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-5110892139200740932012-02-15T10:27:18.204+00:002012-02-15T10:27:18.204+00:00Hi Ryan,
I'm afraid I don't know of any g...Hi Ryan,<br /><br />I'm afraid I don't know of any guidance on redaction policies. For cases heard under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, s12 AJA 1960 applies, for cases heard under the inherent jurisdiction see this case by Munby:<br />http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2011/3017.html<br /><br />But I'm really not sure what the redaction rules are. I know that one reason BAILII gives for not allowing Google to index its judgments is so that if the court realises it's published identifying information they can pull it from the public domain, and I can think of a couple of cases where the courts have done this. My guess is that it's left to the discretion of the judge how a case is redacted, although often in practice I think it's done by counsel and then approved by others involved in the case. I don't think anonymisation for the CoP is done by individuals other than court officers. Sorry not to be more help!Lucy Serieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07820866715125284389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-69401575822098483222012-02-14T20:25:06.587+00:002012-02-14T20:25:06.587+00:00Thanks for a thoughtful and insightful post. Is th...Thanks for a thoughtful and insightful post. Is there any written, structured guidance (official or otherwise) on redaction policies for sensitive cases? I ask as someone involved with the Judgmental.org.uk project, i.e., potentially having to deal in practice with anonymising cases somewhere down the line.ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13057054783141319246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-77375638160665902742011-03-04T19:02:02.802+00:002011-03-04T19:02:02.802+00:00Thanks CB, I think blogging is the way of the futu...Thanks CB, I think blogging is the way of the future for sharing across professions and disciplines, bridging research and practice. I get inspired by social work blogs like yours. As for sharing case law, see it as my contribution to the big society ;)Lucy Serieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07820866715125284389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7327718065135964598.post-86597752141699010752011-03-04T18:15:11.196+00:002011-03-04T18:15:11.196+00:00Thanks for this. Fantastic post with some really u...Thanks for this. Fantastic post with some really useful links to the judgements. You raise some excellent points and I'm so grateful that you are writing this blog by the way, because it really helps me as a practitioner try to sift out some of the MCA case law. We are invariably trying to play catch up and rely on case law to help clarify some of the more difficult issues.cbhttp://fightingmonsters.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com