With up to 50,000 page views a month, the Find Case Law judgment publishing service has grown rapidly since its 2022 launch. Digital director John Sheridan now plans to expand coverage and tackle the challenges of data analysis by AI
lier this year, an unusual email exchange took place between the Court of Appeal Criminal Division and the National Archives. An editor at the archives’ Find Case Law judgment-publishing service needed to check if an individual in a ruling concerning modern slavery should be identified. The court went back to the parties for submissions and confirmed that no order for anonymity should be made, stating ‘it is a central principle of criminal justice that criminal proceedings should take place in public’.
National Archives cites R v Tunc Ahmet as an example of how Find Case Law has become part of the scene of England and Wales since going live in April 2022 (the system is still officially in beta mode). ‘We’re getting knitted into the infrastructure,’ the archives’ digital director John Sheridan told the Gazette.
The case also illustrates one of the challenges of publishing new court judgments, which need more ongoing editorial attention than much of National Archives’ collection. The editing team at Find Case Law has grown from three to seven since launch – still a modest headcount considering the volume of material. The service currently holds 63,000 judgments.
Several more challenges lie ahead as the service works towards its goals of providing access to judgments, preserving them and – most problematic – enabling the onward reuse of their contents.
The project’s next phase is an expansion of coverage from the senior courts of England and Wales plus the UK Supreme Court (the inclusion of Scottish courts seems to be parked in the ‘too difficult’ box).
The first target is to include more county court judgments, starting with those which judges consider significant. ‘We only expect to see a handful of cases, it’s very much judiciary-led,’ Sheridan said. Tribunals are another focus, though the Employment Tribunal will be well down the queue as its judgments are already made available.
