Live blogs can’t handle the truth? A contemporary cross-cultural consideration of transparency and procedural justice
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1402Keywords:
Live blogs, open justice, legal professionals, transparency, Blogs en directo, justicia abierta, profesionales del derecho, Transparencia, justicia procesalAbstract
Reporting from trials using live blogs to continuously inform readers about courtroom events have rapidly become an established part of legal life and are often assumed to fulfill demands of open justice. However, a deep sociolegal understanding of how legal professionals perceive live blogs as affecting procedural justice is currently missing, as is a thick understanding of what transparency means to legal professionals. As more detailed knowledge on contemporary transparency will contribute to understanding the acceptance and resistance to open justice and specific reporting formats, this study focuses on the interlinking of legal professionals, transparency and live blogs. A qualitative cross-cultural approach finds that legal professionals consider Bentham’s tenets to be partially transformed, in particular regarding the original truth function. Rather than enabling truths, legal professionals perceive live blogs as a threat to truths. Nevertheless, live blogs are considered to provide good enough transparency in relation to specific jurisdictional contexts.
La información de los juicios mediante blogs en directo para informar continuamente a los lectores sobre los acontecimientos de la sala se ha convertido rápidamente en una parte establecida de la vida jurídica y a menudo se asume que cumple las exigencias de una justicia abierta. Sin embargo, en la actualidad se echa en falta una comprensión sociojurídica profunda de cómo los profesionales del Derecho perciben que los blogs en directo afectan a la justicia procesal, así como una comprensión profunda de lo que significa la transparencia para los profesionales del Derecho. Dado que un conocimiento más detallado de la transparencia contemporánea contribuirá a entender la aceptación y la resistencia a la justicia abierta y a formatos específicos de información, este estudio se centra en la interrelación de los profesionales del Derecho, la transparencia y los blogs en directo. Un enfoque cualitativo transcultural revela que los profesionales del Derecho consideran que los postulados de Bentham se han transformado parcialmente, en particular en lo que respecta a la función original de la verdad. En lugar de facilitar la verdad, los profesionales del Derecho perciben los blogs en directo como una amenaza para la verdad. No obstante, se considera que los blogs en directo ofrecen suficiente transparencia en relación con contextos jurisdiccionales concretos.
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