I think you’re conflating two different things. The US has one of the strongest traditions of free access to judicial proceedings. You can walk into pretty much any courtroom to watch a proceeding. Even when it’s a big corporate disputes involving confidential information, the court will only be sealed for so long as the confidential information is being actively discussed. And the court will force the parties, at their own expense, to carefully redact filings with confidential information so that they can be available publicly. In one court I practice in, the Federal Circuit, you need special permission to redact more than 15 unique words in a brief, even if it’s a big business disputes with tons of confidential information. That level of access is not the norm in Switzerland as I understand it: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/understanding-the-justi....
> However, no other initiatives are anticipated to make the justice system more public. The judge is, for example, not too keen on the idea of publishing all judgments online. “That would require far too much effort to make things anonymous,” he explains. But the court does already publish the most interesting judgments.
But the government here is also not big on paying for things. Building a whole electronic system to disseminate these filings costs a lot of money. Philosophically there is a strong trend in the US that having a right to do something doesn’t mean the government has to pay to help you exercise that right.
> However, no other initiatives are anticipated to make the justice system more public. The judge is, for example, not too keen on the idea of publishing all judgments online. “That would require far too much effort to make things anonymous,” he explains. But the court does already publish the most interesting judgments.
But the government here is also not big on paying for things. Building a whole electronic system to disseminate these filings costs a lot of money. Philosophically there is a strong trend in the US that having a right to do something doesn’t mean the government has to pay to help you exercise that right.