Expand / Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) Is the direct sponsor of the Open Courts Act from the home. (charge: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Pictures )
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Open Courts Act. The bill intends to update PACER, the site which offers public access to federal court documents. In addition, it intends to get rid of PACER’s paywall from 2025.
The PACER strategy represented a huge progress for judicial transparency as it went on the internet from the 1990s. However, the system has not kept up with the times, even using a user interface which has changed little since the times of dial-up Internet.
Each national bankruptcy and trial courtroom –approximately 200 courts in complete –has its very own different PACER site, with restricted capacities to research across multiple websites. Not only is it inconvenient for customers, but keeping dozens of different sites is an administrative hassle.
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