An electorate that is fully knowledgeable about the decisions that are happening in our public realm … that is always a benefit to society.
Pandemic has forced courts, governments to rethink public access
Policy analyst Brittany Andrew-Amofah on how pandemic is changing access to courts and other institutions.
For the first time in Ontario, more than 20,000 people watched on YouTube while a judge read out his reasons for convicting an off-duty Toronto police officer of assaulting a Black teenager.
The livestream of the city council debate on whether the Toronto police budget should be cut was the most watched since the meetings began streaming on YouTube.
Deputations to city committee meetings can now be made by phone, as can deputations at a Toronto Police Services Board town hall.
The pandemic has forced the courts and municipal governments to adopt new ways of allowing public access and openness, and experts say the changes can have positive impacts in the future by breaking down barriers to participation, facilitating accountability and educating voters about the workings of public institutions. But, they stress, online participation is not a replacement for in-person access and comes with its own barriers including access to Wi-Fi, cellphones and computers that need to be overcome.
The recent record levels of public engagement have been driven by the groundswell of support for urgent changes to policing to address anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, as well as police responses to mental health crises.
This has also drawn attention to the barriers that prevent marginalized groups from being heard and consulted — from the need for child care to Black and Indigenous people feeling unsafe at courthouses, city hall or at Toronto police headquarters, to the time and expense of travelling to city hall from the most socially and economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods, which are also those worst affected by COVID-19.
“It’s exciting to think about the ways in which we can allow for people to better participate in the process we’ve set up in order to make decisions,” said Brittany Andrew-Amofah, a senior policy analyst at the Broadbent Institute.
Online participation and access are essential, and “need to be seriously considered as a way to preserve our democratic systems that we’ve set in place and then strengthen them moving forward,” she said.
“An electorate that is fully knowledgeable about the decisions that are happening in our public realm … that is always a benefit to society,” AndrewAmofah said.
“It helps equip voters to know how to hold decision-makers accountable … And we know that systemic racism has been able to continue, to exist, because of how difficult and challenging it is to hold systems of power accountable.”
The city council policing debate on June 29 saw a high of 1,935 viewers at one time during the livestream — many more than the 933 for the 2016 vehicle-for-hire policy debate, according a city spokesperson. There were 9,280 unique viewers of the entire session, compared with 2,068 unique viewers of the 2018 special council meeting on the provincial government’s move to cut the size of council.
During the policing debate, Progress Toronto, a non-profit that pushes for socially progressive policies in municipal politics, hosted a watch party on Zoom attended by about 550 people, to discuss the issues and explain the often complicated process. It also provided the Twitter handles of councillors so that people could contact them directly during the debate,
“That makes it easier for them to engage (with the councillors) right there, live on the spot, so that they knew that there was scrutiny … that there was public accountability,” said Michal Hay, executive director of Progress Toronto. “We were trying to bridge the fact that people had not filled the council chamber.”
These moments of high civic engagement “deepen people’s understanding of the fact that there is a municipal government that is accountable to them” and can lead to continued participation in the future, she said. Other municipal governments permit phone and video deputations, Hay said. One way that has been used by community advocacy groups is creating “ghost deputations,” whereby a statement is pre-recorded and played — though this means that questions can’t be asked of the speaker. Both Andrew-Amofah and Hay stress the importance of having in-person participation when public health measures allow. Online access is a supplement, not a replacement, Andrew-Amofah said.
Meanwhile, advocates say more work needs to be done to facilitate online access for everyone, including measures like free public Wi-Fi and access to cellphones. In-person barriers could be solved by providing drop-in, on-site child care.
“Continuing to have the opportunity and the place for protest is very important,” Hay said.
“There is definitely a loss when the gallery at city hall is empty.”
Superior Court Justice Joseph Di Luca’s decision in the case of off-duty police officer Const. Michael Theriault and his brother Christian Theriault, who were accused of beating 19-year-old Dafonte Miller, was livestreamed because the pandemic limited public gatherings, but there was still a need to maintain open courts. But a similar decision was made in 2016 by an Edmonton judge when he gave his ruling in a high-profile murder case. He decided it would improve public confidence in the justice system to have his decision heard in full.
Similar views were expressed after the Theriault decision: though the verdict was disappointing to many, the process allowed for a clear and detailed explanation of the law and how it could be applied to what happened.
“Most people’s views of the justice system and how the justice system operates are informed by what they see in fictionalized accounts on television shows and in movies,” said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a University of Toronto criminologist who researches policing and race, after the verdict. “You watch ‘Law & Order’ and in an hour a crime’s happened, they’ve found the suspects, all the interrogations and then there’s finding of guilt and perhaps a sentencing.
“Well, we just sat there for five hours while the judge read his (verdict).”
For police accountability to be effective, the community must understand and have confidence in the process, said Kate Puddister, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph who studies police oversight. “Transparency is key. My hope is this verdict, and the way it was shared with the community through livestreaming, aids in that transparency and legitimacy.” The public livestream — which differs from the limited remote access available through the court teleconference lines and Zoom platforms — advances the principle of open courts, a crucial element of access to justice, she said.
“I hope we see more of this openness going forward, especially when dealing with cases that are so important to the community and its confidence in the justice system,” she said.
The attorney general of Ontario, Doug Downey, agreed.
“The access to justice that technology is allowing us to deploy is phenomenal,” he said of the livestreamed Theriault decision.
Downey said there will remain some areas of the justice system, such as child protection cases, that don’t allow for public access. And having trials accessible by livestream remains controversial, but more options are on the table than ever before.
“One of the biggest changes that has happened through this experience is the attitude towards technology,” he said. “Now we are seeing what is possible … and these are discussions we’ll have with the judiciary and justice partners.”