data-driven advocacy, these guys are onto something here. We need this here.. and now.. To bring more out in the open.

Open Courts is a dataset compiled by computer science students Zbell and Molnár as part of their university project. It makes data that is publicly available but unusable accessible and useful. It is potentially the most influential dataset available to Slovak civil society in the last 20 years. Many Slovakians are wondering how quickly they could apply the programme to other data gathered over the years, such as information on politicians' business holdings or public procurement contract disputes, all of which may have interesting links to judges, courts, and trials.

Beyond Slovakia, Open Courts provides a model and tool for others interested in data-driven advocacy. Years of local advocacy in nominally democratic regions such as eastern Europe, international pressure, and initiatives such as the open government partnership have led to a great deal of data being available on demand from ministerial websites or accessible through freedom of information petitions. However, as transparency advocates well know, the data is usually available only in dis-aggregated, undigestible formats.

Open Courts – and a variety of tools like it designed primarily for data journalists – are lowering the barriers to gather and organise data, opening the door to advocacy initiatives in places where governments have often been able to block such efforts through procrastination and obfuscation.

The above is to give you a idea of what it does,. you can find the rest of the story here.  Rest of the story click here