WASHINGTON STATE ACCESS TO JUSTICE TECHNOLOGY PRINCIPLES: A PERSPECTIVE FOR JUSTICE SYSTEM PROFESSIONALS, THE

Justice System Journal, 2006 by Zorza, Richard, Horowitz, Donald J

* refusing to enforce decisions made within systems that do not meet fundamental standards of fairness.

Principle Five, which was not anticipated at the beginning but which emerged from the outreach process, is "Maximizing Public Awareness and Use." Largely self-explanatory, it reads:

Access to justice requires that the public have available understandable information about the justice system, its resources, and means of access. The justice system should promote ongoing public knowledge and understanding of the tools afforded by technology to access justice by developing and disseminating information and materials as broadly as possible in forms and by means that can reach the largest possible number and variety of people.

To this language, which was not initially anticipated but which emerged from the outreach process, the official Comment added:

Communicating the tools of access to the public should be done by whatever means is effective. For example, information about kiosks where domestic violence protection forms can be filled out and filed electronically could be described on radio or television public service announcements. ... The means may be as many and varied as people's imaginations and the characteristics of the broad population to be reached.

The fifth Principle highlights the responsibility of the justice system, and indeed all its players, to use all means reasonably available to promote and publicize available access tools. All too often, institutions make significant investments in access innovations but then fail to take the relatively low-cost steps of making sure that everyone knows about the access innovations. How many courts hand out book-marks or pens promoting their Web sites? How many courts, as California does, require Web site information on court summonses?

The sixth Principle, "Best Practices," reads:

To ensure implementation of the Access to Justice Technology Principles, those governed by these principles shall utilize "best practices" procedures or standards. Other actors in the justice system are encouraged to utilize or be guided by such best practices procedures or standards.

The best practices shall guide the use of technology so as to protect and enhance access to justice and promote equality of access and fairness. Best practices shall also provide for an effective, regular means of evaluation of the use of technology in light of all the values and objectives of these Principles.

The central point of the sixth Principle is that "Best Practices" can give concreteness to the general Principles, making implementation easier and helping to build consensus around their implementation. Best practices can be very specific, dealing with design principles for Web sites, security procedures for electronic filing, forms design, or the distribution of kiosks. They can be updated regularly, and they are most effective when generated through a consultative process involving those who must implement them daily. We have found that the most effective process for the development of best practices is to ask, for each type of technology (such as Web sites), what needs to be done in the building and deploying of that technology for its use to be fully consistent with each of the Principles. We found such an intellectual process led naturally to very specific best practices that were fully expressive of, and highly protective of, the Principles. As such, this provided independent proof of the validity and value of the Principles.