As we move to a hybrid of in person court and virtual courts, it’s becoming a challenge to find out when an appearance is remote or not. Today I showed up at youth court for a scheduling appearance which MAG told me was in person. But of course, it is not.

The courtroom was locked and not open to the public. So shortly before 9 am someone kindly connects with a court staff person who first tells me all they can provide is a next court date. No idea about teleconference numbers so I can access the remote hearing which has just begun

Another court staff person intervenes and eventually, yes, I can ask for remote access. But I have to make the request by emailing the person I’m speaking with. They can’t give me the phone number. The request needs to be approved by the admin judge. It’s 9:20 by now.

I am obviously not going to get access in time for the appearance I wanted to listen to. And the thing with youth court is that if I can’t hear something live, it’s almost impossible to find out what happened. This is just a date set, afaik, so I haven’t missed much today.

But in general this practice of emailing to ask for remote access to court hearings is going terribly. I asked for remote access to the sex assault trial I just covered the week before it began. I got approved less than half an hour before it started and was obv in court already

I asked for remote court access for a virtual speak to in Newmarket on Wednesday a week in advance and never heard back.

I’m just yelling into the void and I know it’s COVID etc and court staff are overworked and get tonnes or emails. But we can’t just not have open courts and require judicial approval every time I want to hear a date set.

A happy ending! The court responded, gave me the conference number and waited a couple of minutes so I could call in for the matter I wanted to hear. Yay for open-ish courts.