Abstract
The efficient conduct of litigation is a critical factor in the success of a judicial process that promises an equitable solution to those who come to the law.
In today's complex society, there are many institutional and personal barriers to reaching such fair and just conclusions. Significant barriers include the tyrannical amount of information that is accumulated in today's litigation matters and the manic pressures on all parties to attend to other demands on their time and concentration. These contribute greatly to hinder the expeditious settlement of modern legal problems.
One way to alleviate the problem is to apply technology to the litigation process - to use computers not just as personal tools but as tools for collaboration for members of a workgroup that has a common goal .
Courts can lead the information revolution if they take the initiative to encourage greater virtual collaboration by integrating the relevant technologies into their infrastructures and being innovative in addressing the impact of technology on current court procedures and dearly held principles of access to justice and equity.
This paper charts the design and implementation of a shared virtual space between the Court and parties to a current judicial inquiry. Institutional, technical, personal and financial issues will be discussed from the perspective of a court administrator.
On 4 December 1996, the Minister for Mineral Resources directed pursuant to Section 95 of the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1982 (the Act) that a Court of Coal Mines Regulation (the Court) conduct an investigation into the causes and circumstances of the accident.
Section 150 of the Act provides that the Court is to be constituted by a District Court Judge and, by and large, is to have the same powers as a District Court.
On 6 December 1996 His Honour Acting Judge J H Staunton, A0 CBE QC, was appointed to sit as the Court.
Section 98 of the Act provides that at the conclusion of the investigation, the Court shall make a report to the Minister stating the causes and circumstances and adding any observations which the Court thinks right to make.
Senior and Junior Counsel and a Solicitor were appointed to assist the Court together with two inspectors, one seconded from the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and the other a retired inspector, a Registrar, Associate to the Judge and Court Officer were also appointed.
The Court held its first Mention on 9 January 1997 when leave was given for ten parties to appear (including the Mining company, several unions, DMR, and relatives of the deceased).
The Hearing commenced on 3 March 1997 and is continuing.
In order to achieve this objective, the court would need to, among others, efficiently manage the information that was expected to be presented to it by Senior Counsel Assisting and legal representatives of the ten parties that have been given leave to appear before the Inquiry.
Since Senior Counsel would need to refer to thousands of documents, many of which are large plans and maps, in chamber and in the Court, it was imperative to have an information management system that facilitated the storing, search, retrieval, display and transport of these documents.
Moreover, because of the special circumstances of the Inquiry, the Court made a commitment to share the documents with all parties given leave to appear in court. It was a requirement that the information management system allowed not only the cost-efficient distribution of the documents to those parties requesting them but also the efficient management of the growth of the document collection as new documents were being added frequently through the whole process.
The electronic document management system implemented to meet these requirements was based on a design that has proven its worth in many other cases and, indeed, has been very successful in the current Inquiry.
A novel challenge presented to the Court, however, was its need for remote access to these documents. It became clearer as the Opening of the Inquiry drew nearer, that the Court was going to alternately sit between two venues (Newcastle and Sydney) and many of the parties retained solicitors based in Newcastle who briefed barristers in Sydney.
This presented the opportunity and the challenge to design a solution for a geographically dispersed group of users who do not only need to have access to documents on an individual basis but to share information as part of a workgroup.
It was not difficult to realise that a solution based on internet technologies was going to be ideal. This solution was not going to be an imperative but was nevertheless highly desirable if it could pass the Court's justification test based on several issues. Most prominent of these issues are :
The Court had commissioned Auscript Legal Support Services to provide end-to-end litigation support solution that includes document and exhibit management; transcription and recording of proceedings, user training and support, and project management.
A fully functional, well-proven court-based document management system was already installed. This system managed the search, retrieval and display of documents in-court and is appropriately called Auscript's In-Court system. Copies of documents held in the In-Court system were replicated on CDs and distributed to Senior Counsel Assisting and his team and to all parties who requested them.
The CDs are updated with new exhibits at regular intervals based either on time (usually once a month) or on need (when many new documents not previously in the CD are exhibited).
It became clear after the In-Court system was commissioned that remote access was going to be a challenge. It was not difficult to recognise that a solution based on internet technologies was ideal if it could satisfy the Court's requirements on security, effect on court procedures, impact on parties and cost benefit.
In consultation with the Court, Auscript established a plan of design and implementation that addresses all the court's concerns and set out design goals.
The design goals were based on issues driven by the Court, the parties and available technology.
The design goals are :
The Gretley "site" is a replica of its current In-Court system and deployed over an intranet with access provided to security-cleared users via a direct dial-up communications routine to the Court's web server.
The content of the site is what is contained in the In-Court system and have been "browser-enabled" with the use of products and tools readily available in the market. Users can now access the Court's server remotely and view its content with a common interface that is the browser.
Within the browser of choice of the user (Netscape or Internet Explorer), the following materials are available :
The users may also wish to have daily transcripts e-mailed directly to them in their entirety and an alert system is then activated.
To manage the distribution of images, a special routine was developed to incorporate the access of specific images on CD rather than via the intranet. This applies specially to maps and plans that are many megabytes in size and may take an inordinately long time to download.
There are also visual flags that indicate to users whether the image/s they requested are accessible on their CDs or are "new" and are therefore only available on-line. Of course, in situations where the user do not have the CD on hand, all images are available on-line from the server.
With proper training and cooperation from willing parties, virtual conference areas may be established for workgroups to facilitate e-mail and exchange of documents.
As this special Court is limited in its administrative and technical infrastructure, management of the server has been outsourced to Auscript as part of its end-to-end Court support.
It became imperative then that a communications architecture be designed as an alternative to the general internet but still used the features of the internet, especially that of web technology.
To this end, the concept of an "intranet" was proposed and accepted. The system made available to security cleared users via a direct dial-up link up between the user and the Court server instead of using an Internet Service Provider.
This has been graphically demonstrated in court when presentations of exhibits using the image-based system, radically reduced the hearing time. For example, to date more than 50 large plans and maps have been tendered as exhibits. The map sizes reach up to, and sometimes exceed, 2 metres in length by 1.5 metres in width.
Logistically, it is virtually impossible, and would be extremely time consuming, for these plans to be made available to the ten parties, the Judge and the witness every time the exhibit was referred to in Court. As a matter of practice, the plans are normally scanned in advance of their first tendering and are available to be examined on a number of large screens in the courtroom. In addition, they can be easily enlarged on the screen saving more time whenever there is a need to focus on a particular portion of the map or plan.
Since the on-line litigation support system is currently intended to run as a parallel to the In-Court system, it is anticipated that the cost benefits will be measured in terms of time savings in gaining access to daily transcripts and new exhibits. However, it is planned that the on-line system will gradually replace the In-Court system at which time the existing and anticipated cost benefits will merge to justify the investment on the systems.
Furthermore, the lessening of the need to move Court documentation between the venues in Sydney and Newcastle has substantially reduced storage and retrieval costs associated therewith.
Any reduction of costs to the parties by using the on-line system may ultimately benefit the Crown as the Court has the power to order the Crown to pay the costs of parties to the investigation.
It was therefore decided to limit the participation of the Court to an Announcement section at this stage.
There was also an organisational issue to be considered in that the whole technology support was outsourced by the Court to Auscript Therefore all the design, implementation and management of the system was carried out off-site and had to be designed into the architecture and management plans.
This was the Court's preferred option as it enabled the Court to operate without a full-time staffed Registry at either venue as documents can be accessed and information provided on CD or via the intranet.
The design goal for this issue was to deploy an open and easy-to-use solution within the limitations of security and cost.
It is important to note that in the design goal of "open-ness", there will be three user groups for the system :
The collaborative approach to litigation which the internet encourages can only advance dispute resolution techniques as the parties will have access to information more quickly and in a more open environment which should encourage settlement negotiations at an earlier stage.
The gradual integration within the Court structure of different applications of the internet and related technologies will further improve efficiency and access and the expansion of case management initiatives.
It is likely that Court staff productivity will be enhanced if electronic filing of documents is implemented allowing reduced multiple handling of documents and less recourse to hard copy files.
A greater capacity to outsource various activities of the Court may also be seriously considered to enable the courts to reap the benefits of technology without committing to costly investments.
However, there currently remain various constraints on the implementation of this technology to courts primarily pertaining to issues such as security, Court and legal authorisation and authentication, accuracy of documentation, costs associated with scanning of images and data entry, and also ensuring access to the Court system for those lacking the requisite technology.
The view is one of great optimism, however, as there is little doubt
that the rapid developments in technology will minimise, if not altogether
eradicate the major constraints. The greater challenges lie in successfully
engaging legal, cultural and financial initiatives in order to ensure that
the Courts, through technology, can enhance their ability to ensure access
to justice and equity to one and all.