Consider what Professor Guffin has to say in his latest blog post, Maintaining Public Trust in State Courts: Why Privacy Matters:
“Under Maine’s constitution, judicial power is vested exclusively in the Supreme Judicial Court. Of course, with the exercise of such power comes certain responsibilities, one of which is to preserve the institutional integrity of the court system so that it can fulfill its mission “[t]o administer justice by providing a safe, accessible, efficient and impartial system of dispute resolution that serves the public interest, protects individual rights and instills respect for the law.”
As an integral part of our state government, the MJB has a duty to protect the personal information entrusted to the state courts by Maine citizens. While its exact contours might be difficult to define, that duty is firmly rooted in the Maine Constitution and the judicial branch’s institutional charge to maintain public trust and confidence in the state court system. It means that the courts should treat personal information in accordance with the expectations under which it was disclosed in the first place. Citizens rightfully have come to trust that the courts will handle their personal information discreetly, so that disclosure of the information will not later be used by others to harm them.
Preserving citizens’ trust in the state court system requires that the MJB adopt and implement digital court records access rules that maintain that trust, not destroy it. If the rules do not adequately protect peoples’ privacy, the public’s expectations of trust in the courts will be broken, de-incentivizing citizens from interacting with the court system.
Abandonment of the state courts in favor of private justice tribunals by the wealthy and others who have a choice whether to interact with the courts is one thing. Among other issues, it would leave the court system without powerful advocates. It is another thing entirely for many of the poor and most vulnerable people in our population for whom there is no real choice. They will be forced to use an underfunded court system lacking adequate privacy protection, and to do so at their own peril.
It will be a sad day if the digital transformation of the state courts causes Maine citizens to lose trust in the state’s judicial system.”
Read the full blog– Maintaining Public Trust in State Courts: Why Privacy Matters
The full series can be found at: The Privacy Law Perspectives Blog