{"id":4179,"date":"2023-01-04T19:00:33","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T19:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/?p=4179"},"modified":"2023-01-04T19:00:33","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T19:00:33","slug":"collaboration-for-justice-and-the-court-transparency-coalition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chicagocouncil.org\/staging\/1601\/collaboration-for-justice-and-the-court-transparency-coalition\/","title":{"rendered":"Collaboration for Justice and the Court Transparency Coalition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts<\/a> and the Chicago Council of Lawyers\u2014the Collaboration for Justice\u2014are pleased to be part of the Court Transparency Coalition<\/a>, led by the Better Government Association.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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As advocates for fair and open courts, Chicago Appleseed and the Council of Lawyers have joined a variety of other advocates for equitable justice to highlight how a lack of transparency about court operations impedes the fair administration of justice. The core of the Coalition’s advocacy is expanding the application of the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to the judicial branch. As the law currently stands, the judiciary has full discretion over what information it releases about its operations, creating significant blind spots in the public understanding of basic information about our courts. Illinois is an outlier in exempting our courts from open access laws, court rules and\/or policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve explained the details of this exemption in the past<\/a>, and the BGA does the same in a post, \u201cHow Illinois Courts are Hidden from FOIA<\/a>,” on its website. While this exemption remains, Illinois courts are not required to answer inquiries about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n