IT Support of the Judiciary: Australia, Singapore, Venezuela, Norway, The Netherlands and Italy.

A. Oskamp, A.R. Lodder, and M. Apistola

TMC Asser Press/Cambridge University Press, ISBN 90-6704-168-8

Contributions by

Information Technology (IT) has found its way into legal practice and as part of that into the judiciary. IT support of the Judiciary in Europe appeared in 2001. This report provides an impression of three other continents, or, better, of a country in each of these continents: Australia (Australia), Singapore (Asia), and Venezuela (South-America). In addition, updates of the 2001 reports by Norway, Italy and the Netherlands are provided. These countries can be qualified as the best equipped and organized with regard to IT for the judiciary in Europe.

Amongst the issues addressed are electronic filing systems, decision support systems, the employment of knowledge management, and online services, including publication of verdicts. The central issue in the development of IT support for the judiciary world wide appears the use of case management systems.

IT is used as a means to change in most countries. In a very strong way this happened in Singapore, where IT was used to transform an old fashioned organization where it was hard or even impossible to get access to case information to a modern, well-equipped organization.

This book is meant as comprehensive source on the use of IT in legal organizations, in particular the judiciary, for academics, both students and staff, practitioners (attorneys, company lawyers, consultants), and governments.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One
Introduction – Anja Oskamp, Arno L. Lodder and Martin Apistola

1. IT support of the judiciary
2. Outline of this book
3. IT support of the judiciary in Europe
4. Important issues outside Europe
1. History of IT in the Courts both in and outside Europe
2. Some distinctive features
3. Instigating IT projects
4. Influence of IT on Legal Practice
5. The drawbacks of introducing IT
6. Information and knowledge management
5. Concluding observations

1. Organisation/structure of the judiciary
1. The Courts/Judiciary
2. The Prosecution
2. Information Technology (IT): The most pressing issues
1. Trends in IT
2. Electronic Courtrooms
3. Pre-trial management
4. Electronic filing
5. Transcript – The Court Record
6. Video-conferencing/Cyber-Courts
7. Use of technology to assist the jury
8. Public Information
9. The influence of IT on criminal legislation and legal practice – equity, access and the role of the court
10. The level of courtroom automation/infrastructure needs
11. Use of technology/user support
12. Initiation of IT projects
13. Common technical standards
14. The (mandatory) use of (identical) IT-systems by judges and public prosecutors
15. The drawback of introducing IT
3. (Legal) information/knowledge management: The most pressing issues
1. Developments in legal information/knowledge systems
2. Case Management
3. Judicial Support Systems
4. Use of legal information/knowledge systems
5. Use of information/knowledge departments
6. Use of statistical information
4. The beneficial effects of these discussions

1. Introduction
2. Singapore’s legal system and judicial structure
3. The impetus behind the use of technology
4. The early years of harnessing technology in the Supreme Court
5. The vision of a paperless courtroom – towards building up a world-class judiciary
6. An Electronic Litigation System for the 21st century
7. Electronic trials and hearings – the birth of the technology courts
8. Use of electronic documents in the courtroom
9. The Electronic Filing System – a litigation system par excellence
1. The four services of the Electronic Filing System
2. The six components of the Electronic Filing System
10. Strategy behind the planning, development and implementation of the Electronic Filing System
11. A watershed in the pursuit of an Electronic Litigation System
12. LawNet – a strategic national information network
13. The final pieces of the Electronic Litigation System jigsaw – other key application systems and technological initiatives in the Supreme Court
1. Practising Certificate E-filing System
2. Court information services
3. Remote and wireless access to the Supreme Court network
4. Internet Protocol (IP) videophone
5. Knowledge management and information repositories
14. The realisation of the vision of an Electronic Litigation System – the dawn of a new era of the cyber-court
15. The final destination of the journey

1. Introduction
2. The Judiciary
3. Information and Communication Technologies in the Judiciary
4. Introducing IT
5. Trends in IT
6. Legal Information Knowledge Management

1. Introduction
2. The Norwegian Courts and the administration thereof
3. Co-operation and co-ordination with the other law enforcement agencies – the ‘penal chain"
4. The first wave of IT in the Norwegian Courts
1. Technical infrastructure
2. Land Registry
3. Case management system
4. Accounting software
5. Some effects of the introduction of IT, and some other aims of the court administration
1. Time standards
2. The reduction of employees – the required staff in a specific court
3. Statistics by the court administration
4. Statistical possibilities for each court
6. Dissemination of cases
1. Recourse: Lovdata
7. Sentencing support
1. A Sentencing Support System for the Judiciary?
2. A Sentencing system for Public Prosecutors?
8. The second wave of IT in the Norwegian Judiciary
1. The starting point for the second generation of IT in the Norwegian Judiciary
2. Case Management System for marriage
3. Case Management System for the Supreme Court
4. Wide Area Network, Thin clients and standard software
5. Intranet
6. Land Registration
7. A portal for the Judiciary on the web
8. CMS for the District Courts and the Courts of Appeal – LOVISA
9. Further developments
9. Bibliographical references

1. Introduction
2. IT support for judges concerning sentencing decisions
3. IT support for the prosecutor concerning sentencing requests
4. IT support for judges in determining damages
5. Management information to evaluate the productivity and/or quality of judges
6. On management, funding, design, and evaluation
7. Sentencing systems for judges and prosecutors
8. On the mandatory use of systems
9. Theoretical legal issues
10. Theoretical ICT issues
11. Completely digitized procedures
12. The state of automation
13. Bibliographical references

1. Introduction
2. The Italian Judiciary: a Brief Overview
3. ICT Governance in the Italian Judicial System
4. Information and Communication Technology in the Judicial Process
5. Information and Communication Technology for Court Performance Appraisal
6. Concluding Remarks
7. Bibliographical References

Appendix 2 – The questionnaire 2000

About the authors