Web-streaming more cases, joining Facebook and updating its website are part of the Victorian Supreme Court's move to embrace new media technologies, Chief Justice Marilyn Warren says.
Chief Justice Warren, who delivered the 14th annual Redmond Barry Lecture at the State Library of Victoria on Monday evening, said the effectiveness of web-streaming sentences was "substantial".
The court used web-streaming in the case of a father who murdered his daughter by throwing her from the Westgate Bridge and recorded thousands of hits on its website.
"Web-streaming will continue as fast as we are able to secure funding," Chief Justice Warren said.
However, she stopped short from backing the broadcast of visual feeds of criminal trials, in the style of the famous US OJ Simpson case, saying courts were not ready for this.
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She said it would also tackle its present website which is "clumsy, difficult and sometimes impossible to navigate".
Changes could include a regular blog from a retired judge.
She said while traditional media institutions were contracting, the courts needed to look at new media forums to reach the community and effectively inform them about the justice system.
"Open justice now increasingly means the ability of the community to access information about the courts through the internet and social media," she said.
This week the Victorian Supreme Court will move onto Facebook and is already on Twitter and will look at other opportunities, she said.
"Technology and social media provide an exhilarating opportunity for the courts to tell the public we serve who we are, what we do, how we do it and why the rule of law matters," she said.
