The Moving Frontier: How the National Justice Project Is Using Digital Technology to Expand Access to Justice
George Newhouse AM, Trisha Ramesh, Tiara de Silva
原文摘要
Over the past three decades, technological advances have assisted individuals to gain access to legal information, enhance the efficiency of legal services, and streamline dispute resolution. More recently, the proliferation of generative artificial intelligence has reinforced this emphasis on firm-level productivity, with commercial legal practice increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence tools to automate document creation and optimise case management. While commercial technology focuses on productivity, community organisations are exploring how artificial intelligence can level the playing field for marginalised communities. Far less attention has been given to free, direct-to-consumer legal technologies, as these models are often unprofitable. Consequently, justice technology scholarship has overlooked a distinct class of technology: digital reporting platforms that enable people to record their experiences of harm, while simultaneously aggregating those accounts into a body of evidence capable of supporting advocacy, institutional accountability, and law reform. Crucially, experiences of discrimination and administrative abuse are often dismissed by oversight bodies as individual grievances. To understand the transformative potential of these platforms, this article asks two questions. First, how can digital reporting close the knowledge and power gap for marginalised communities interacting with the legal system? Second, how can these tools collect evidence to hold institutions accountable, drive change and contribute to a more just society?
cs.CY