NWO grant for research into effective participation in online criminal proceedings

Over the years, Christina’s academic work mainly focused on comparative criminal procedure. She also conducted a project for the WODC (Research and Data Centre), which is part of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security, in which the digitalisation of criminal proceedings was examined. “That was before COVID. I visited court rooms in England and I remember sitting and watching bail hearings (pre-trial detention), that took place with the defendants appearing from the detention facility via Skype,” she says. “I was shocked by how efficiently it was done, but also by how the virtual presence of a defendant is so different from a personal attendance. That sparked my curiosity and I had attempted to get funding, but back then it didn’t seem so relevant for research, since we didn’t really use technology habitually in courtrooms.” Little did everyone know how this would change over the years that followed.

Developments, questions, but… no answers

The COVID pandemic increased the use video technology in many areas of life, including criminal proceedings. In several legal systems online participation is used as default version of attendance for bail hearings. Another example is the discussion on whether the European Arrest Warrants (when you surrender suspects from one country to another) should be sometimes replaced by video hearings. “We are more and more prone to use it, but the problem is that we don’t exactly know the impact that online presence has on procedural rights and court proceedings altogether. We have all experienced online teaching and I think we can all agree that something is missing when you meet online, things are not the same,” Christina explains. “Perhaps we need to provide different procedural rights in some circumstances.” For example, where will the lawyer be? Will he or she be right next to the defendant in the prison facility to explain to the defendant what is going on and to consult him so they can properly represent the person? Or will the lawyer be at the court, together with the other participants? All kinds of practical questions that have an effect on defence rights.

Centred on defendants’ perception of fairness 

With her research project, called ‘Beam me up, Scotty! Effective participation to virtual criminal proceedings’, Christina aims to understand what conditions virtual criminal proceedings should have in order to ensure effective participation. “I follow a human-centred approach to the law and try to understand effective participation from the point of view of the defendants. We don’t have much research on how defendants actually perceive fairness when they participate online, so I will interview (ex-)defendants in the Netherlands and England that have participated to online hearings. Did they experience the proceeding as fair? Could they actually explain themselves adequately? Did they feel like the judge could see who they are? Did they feel intimidated and disengaged?” 

Another part of her methodology is to look at the existing socio-legal research on virtual presence. “By looking at psychology, sociology, and public architecture, I want to investigate the difference between physical presence and online presence, and see how existing research from non-legal fields could be used for formulating legal requirements.”

The project starts in June 2025 and will go on for one year. Christina: “This grant gives me the opportunity to work on a comprehensive project that will hopefully result in some legal criteria. Ones that fit and actually ensure proper effective participation in virtual criminal proceedings.”