Introduction
Laws vary from country to country. Even the process of creating, screening, and ultimately approving laws greatly vary from one state to another. And this is because of this reason why laws do not have a general or universally accepted definition. In the United States, there is an organization called, the Federal Register. It acts as the federal state-governed journal that publishes a wide variety of media and publicity services, one of which is the presentation of the proposition of a new rule, or a set of changes that would be applied to an existing one . Internet users who are at the same time a U.S. citizen, can cast their votes regarding the position, and even state their concerns, suggestions, and basically anything that has something to do with the proposed rule amendments, knowing that their comments would not just be disregarded. The finalization on whether the proposed rule amendments would be applied to the existing law depends largely on the analysis and summary of the comments the Federal Registry has gathered. Of course, there is a set and a well-announced time limit within which individuals who wants to participate and voice out their concerns regarding the revisions on the rule should respond, especially if such would change or greatly affect their life or their future. The objective of this paper is to discuss and analyze the Changes to Scheduling and Appearing at hearings (Agency in charge: Social Security Administration; action: notice of proposed rulemaking), also known as the Docket No. 2011-0056.
Changes to Scheduling and Appearing at Hearings
In a nutshell, the Changes to Scheduling and Appearing at hearings are a proposed amendment to the standard rule regarding the conduction of hearings. Traditionally, hearings are conducted physically or with the claimant and the defendant’s side seeing each other inside the court, before the presence of the judge, the jury, and the respective side’s lawyers of course. What is being tried to revise here is the mode of communication and on a lighter scale, the process of scheduling hearings. Regarding the proposed revisions on the mode of communication, it is being pushed by the Social Security Administration (SSA), officially on the 27th of July 2013 that court hearings which would be qualified for an arbitrated set of criteria be allowed to be conducted virtually, or via a video teleconference. For law enforcement and criminal justice officers who are already used to the conventional way of handling court proceedings, this proposition would normally be perceived as something that is way outside of the box. This revision on the current hearing rules was intended to make the process of conducting hearings a lot easier for the involved personalities both from the claimant and of the defendant’s side, especially if they would happen to be prominent individuals who do not have the luxury of time to deal with a lawsuit, and a poorly optimized court hearing scheduling system which is what the United States government currently have, at least based on the user comments that one can easily read on inside the federal register’s website. With court hearings being allowed to be conducted via video conferencing, individuals, whose attendance has been absolutely required by the court, would be able to participate in the court proceedings a lot easier. They would not have to be present in the court hall anymore and they can finally do their part in the proceeding regardless of where they are, as long as they have a computer and a relatively stable connection to the World Wide Web. In fact, this proposition came a little bit late, considering the time that has passed since the internet and internet-based services became a popular mode of communication. Some individuals, especially those who are very in to social networks even consider video conferencing as a substitute to real and personal communication, which according to various studies on communication, is not an advisable practice because the latter still stands out in a lot of ways.
The other part of the proposition has something to do with the scheduling of hearings. Normally, the court determines the time when a certain court proceeding will be held and also when the next one, if it is going to be a series of court hearings, would take place. Under the proposed changes by the Social Security Administration, the court would still have the upper hand when it comes to scheduling court hearings. However, the claimant or the defendant would now have the opportunity to accept or decline the schedule set by the court. All that the court would do is to announce a hearing schedule—the one that would be done via video teleconferencing. The two sides would then be given a maximum of thirty days, from the day the court approved the proposal to conduct the hearing via the desired mode of conference, to accept or decline. Should both sides agree to comply with the changes in court appearance and scheduling, then the court proceeding would most likely be done via video conferencing. However, in case one or both sides disagree, then it would probably not happen.
We have already tackled how conducting hearings through video teleconferencing can be advantageous for the claimant and the defendant’s sides. Actually, one of the major benefits of doing virtual court hearings is the ease in scheduling. It is obviously a lot easier to schedule a virtual meeting for legal purposes than the one which would have to be attended by more people and has to be done in one location—on court. Now, add the fact that the claimant and the defendant’s side both have 30 days, or at least twenty seven because they have to submit their approval or disapproval of the decision to the court three days before the due date, and legalizing this rule makes it even more appealing.
This proposed rule by the SSA has been open for comments since June 27, 2013 and will continue to be until August 23, 2013. Two months is a fairly long time for a government legal agency to receive comments for a notice of proposed rulemaking. Even so, this still lies on the positive side because by giving the people more time to react, the Federal Register would really be able to receive and understand what the people think about the Changes to Scheduling and Appearing at hearings. Aside from being a time saver and an efficiency booster, all for the claimant, defendant, and the court’s side, there is also so far nothing present in this change proposal that violates those 12 principles of Clinton’s executive bill.
If ever I would be given the change to revise this rule before it becomes final, I would like everything to be more specific, like the specific mode of video conferencing should be used, and other things that may create confusion such as the ones who would be required to be a part of the video conference. Lapses like these are so common in laws and rules today and they should be addressed as early as now, when they are still not ratified. This is also why it is very important for lawmakers to not only rely on their assessing capabilities but also on the people because a million brains will always be better than just a couple.
Bibliography
U.S. Federal Register. (2008). CFR 2.6 titled Unrestricted Use. Federal Register, 1.
U.S. Federal Register. (2013). Changes to Scheduling and Appearing at hearings . U.S. FederalRegister.
