I’ve always been curious about what happens behind closed doors. At university, I tutored in a prison, where my students told me about the challenges they faced in a system that often felt inhumane and unjust. They were continuously frustrated that hardly anyone on the outside seemed to care about their suffering. That is why I became a researcher. I’m driven to collect data, pursue the unknown, and to make visible what is currently invisible to many.

This same drive led me to become a courtwatcher. Even though courts technically don’t operate behind closed doors, it can often feel like they do. Around 95% of all criminal cases are dealt with in magistrates’ courts, yet we know very little about what actually happens inside them. No one keeps a record of what is said during hearings. Important data is either not recorded by courts or not made publicly accessible.

The first time I observed a hearing at a magistrates’ court I felt like I was in an entirely different world. The courtroom I was in had no windows, and I couldn’t help but feel that this was symbolic. Yes, courtrooms are technically open to the public, but in reality, no one walking past the court can look in, and no one inside the court can look out. To me, it seemed as if the windowless walls were telling defendants that even before their guilt was determined, they were already invisible, condemned to being isolated from the rest of society.

How fair or just can a sentence be when so much of its impact remains hidden? Whenever I observe a hearing, I ask myself whether I thought the hearing was fair, and whether I thought the sentence was just. But the more hearings I observe, the less sure I am of how to define “fair” or “just”.

If I told you that I observed a case in which a man received a 6-month driving disqualification for driving a car without a license, you might think this was a fair judgement. But what if I told you that the man suffered from PTSD after he had previously been stabbed, that he had taken an anger management course in which he learned to choose flight over fight, that he had found himself in a dangerous situation one night that triggered his PTSD, and that, to keep himself and others safe, he drove the car for two minutes on an empty road to get away?

And what if I told you that the man had been volunteering as a mentor for people with criminal records trying to turn their lives around, that he had just been offered a paid mentoring position for which he would need to drive a car, and that the driving disqualification would likely cost him his new job? Is it really fair for him to be sentenced to a fine, a driving disqualification, and unemployment, all for driving a car without a license for two minutes during a crisis?

Maybe you think his punishment is fair, maybe you don’t. But what I hope this shows is that a fine isn’t just a fine, and a driving disqualification isn’t just a driving disqualification. Even punishments less severe than prison sentences have many, often overlooked, long-term consequences. It is precisely these consequences that make me question what makes a punishment or sentence “just”.

Another hearing I observed involved a young man who was given a fine for smoking a joint in public. Is it just that, as a result, this man will now lose his job as a social worker? 

Is it just that a young father – a victim of racially aggravated assault in a pub, who drove his moped to get to safety – was arrested for drunk-driving and sentenced to a fine and a driving disqualification? Is it just that he can now no longer drive his wife to her cancer treatment, or his two children to school?

Is it just that a student is unable to receive his degree because the judge decided to keep him in prison until his trial, which means he will miss the deadline to submit his master’s thesis?

During every sentencing hearing, I can’t help but wonder if the person in front of me will now lose their job, their income, or their home. Were they experiencing an emergency or a mental health crisis? How will their loved ones be impacted?

Sentences are supposed to reflect what we – as a society – want punishment to look like. If we observe a hearing and don’t think the punishment is fair, it is up to us to challenge decision-makers until the law reflects what we believe justice means.

I didn’t know what I would find before I began courtwatching. I didn’t expect that observing hearings would lead me on a quest to find out what justice means to me. I cannot promise that courtwatching will instantly bring about full transparency and accountability within the courts (though I hope it will). And I don’t expect that we will all agree on what “just” or “fair” looks like. But I went inside. I observed, listened, and questioned. And I hope you will too.

This blog was written by volunteer courtwatcher Annalena Wolcke.