Just a Grunt;
No need for the nomex.
First, thank you for returning to the original topic at hand. I was actually aware of Australia's enlightened laws on the matter of protecting flight data from use in criminal court but had forgotten. Thanks for the reminder.
In re, "Significantly, Chief Justice de Jersey speaks of our "parliaments taking an approach protective of flight crews, but recognizing the social utility of facilitating civil claims." ",
Frankly, I think that's all that reasonable argument from the flight crews' side of matters could expect. It has been pointed out (PBL) that the legal history of "recompense", (I know I am not using the correct term here, but I'm a pilot, not a lawyer) is a very long one and that one cannot just toss out such history in order to privilege a recent process - not, at least, without signficant social benefit.
So, hastily added however is the acknowledgement that "accidents" and "human factors" are far more deeply comprehended today than such factors were fifty years ago. We also now know that the intelligent use of collected data has a strongly preventative effect when provided to the appropriate groups.
Changing SOPs, addressing ATC procedures, examining aircraft behaviours, and collating data which may exhibit behavioural patterns not seen in cockpit crews before, (the automation question may be a case in point), all point to the such appropriate use of flight data.
Yet there is a strong societal sense that, at some point, there must be an accounting. I think most flight safety people would agree. As PBL has offered, perhaps the two worlds are irreconcilable, and perhaps that is so, perhaps not. I know PBL has considered the notion of civil proceedings as well, as one way to retain the integrity of seemingly-opposed processes.
The issue is, primarily, using such data/information in criminal court as a blame-mechanism. The issue is not necessarily the total prevention of discovery as may occur in civil proceedings.
By bringing these two court cases into discussion with those in aviation and specifically the safety professions, and of those professionals in other fields, (legal, engineering, human factors), it is to this point (of possible ways forward) that I had hoped this thread would have arrived, though much earlier.
I hope others, from the aviation community and from the legal profession might pick up on these thoughts to see where this might go.
PJ2