This article is written by Sandra Elena, Ministry of Justice of Argentina

Open government is based on three pillars: transparency and accountability regarding the activities of public institutions; citizen participation in the development of public policies; and collaboration between public agencies and other stakeholders. Within this vision, civil society plays a key role in improving the quality of public services.

When these three principles — transparency, participation and collaboration — are applied together in the justice sector, we call it open justice.

Argentina’s open justice initiative aims to raise the transparency and accountability of the justice sector by opening judicial data to the public on the country’s first open data portal in the justice sector, datos.jus.gob.ar.

This is the result of a much-needed collaboration between different agencies of the judicial system (i.e. federal justice, provincial justice, public ministries, ministries of justice, etc.) through joint work with more than fifty other justice institutions.

Underpinning these efforts is a paradigm shift in the way we think about government. Moving from a conception where justice institutions are at the centre of the system to a new one where people and their unmet legal needs is the main focus. Hence, the ultimate goal is to push forward a new, people-centred management model for justice, and to align judicial processes and products to that model.

Getting started

In general, public servants in the various institutions in the justice sector understand the need for these new policies, which they see as part of a broader cultural transformation.

To enable this cultural transformation, three steps are necessary:

  1. training the authorities of the judiciary on state openness
  2. working together with the institutions to create the “products” that we open to the public, for example by creating and publishing open datasets
  3. creating a link to civil society in the design, implementation and evaluation of public justice policies

In Argentina, one of our biggest challenges was that, because of the federal nature of the country where each of the twenty-four provincial jurisdictions has their own judicial system and institutions, we had to spend considerable time and effort in political negotiations with the various institutions.

Open justice could only be achieved through citizen participation in judicial reform

We established a methodology for working with primary judicial data. Following the example of other federal countries, particularly India and Canada, we sought to produce the data from the computer records of each case to avoid intermediation errors. Achieving access to these primary databases was the main objective of an inter-jurisdictional agreement signed by more than fifty judicial institutions in the country. Following this, we established a protocol on what data would be opened (technical data protocols) and how (procedural protocols).

Thus, we produced coding tables and listings of historical data, among other actions. In turn, the protocols created tables by crime, by case, by person, by procedural movements.

Getting buy-in

The need for gathering political support as well as resources remains a key challenge to open judicial data. Political support from institutions and decision makers is as important as the technological capacity to change judicial procedures that often have roots that go back several centuries.

Open justice could only be achieved through citizen participation in judicial reform. In our case, this happened through a digital and face-to-face platform in which citizens can make proposals, share ideas and co-create policies to improve the justice service.

Changing a deeply rooted culture of opacity is not easy — It requires strong political will and determination

In April 2018, we began publishing a new data section in our portal, on a topic of great impact on society: gender. Based on featured datasets, we published visualisations on gender violence cases, as well as on women’s participation in economic activities (presence of women in corporations, limited liability companies, civil associations, foundations and foreign companies). This section on gender data visualisations became very valuable for three reasons.

First, because of the social impact of information on a very prominent issue, which led to a serious and evidence-based public debate. Second, because it brought citizens closer to relevant public data through simple visualisations. And third, because it helped achieve a better position regarding compliance with international standards.

Leadership for culture change

The justice sector must abandon the hierarchical leadership of previous eras and be open to participation in the design, implementation and evaluation of public justice policies. Various mechanisms are applicable to achieve this objective. An open justice vision can help institutions achieve it.

Changing a deeply rooted culture of opacity is not easy. It requires strong political will and determination. In our case, the new government that took office in late 2015 adopted an open government vision. The ministry of justice accompanied this vision by providing legal, human and economic resources to open up the justice system. Leaders committing in open government must have both technical skills and political negotiation power (with other public institutions and with civil society).

This was key to our success. All the most important justice institutions in the countries agreed to work with the ministry of justice even if they are not obligated by the law. They considered that this initiative will help them as well as they recognise the strong leadership of our ministry. Our leading work in the international arena, in particular co-chairing the task force on justice and our work on justice within OGP, was fundamental to make all this work in the country. — Sandra Elena

(Picture Credit: Unsplash)

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