Australian State Implements Online Court Hearings

In the near future, court hearings in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) will be going high-tech. The state plans to roll out "JusticeLink", an AUS $48 million computer system, to all of its courts by 2009. The system will allow simple procedural hearings to take place online. Trials and committal hearings will continue to be heard in courtrooms. Lawyers will be able to log on to a bulletin board, to which they will post their arguments. The presiding judge will be alerted of their post via e-mail, and will be able to log in to the system to make determinations in real time. NSW Attorney General John Hatzistergos commented that JusticeLink will streamline the judicial process and save countless hours and money. More than 167 online hearings have already been heard in civil matters before the NSW Supreme Court. The system will also allow lawyers to "e-file" motions and evidence, which will then be accessible to all parties online. Mr. Hatzistergos commented that "document trolleys and ring binders will be replaced by laptops and CDs as thousands of pages will now be stored as soft copies." So far, nine law firms have used the e-filing system to upload 11,500 documents. NSW Law Society president Hugh Macken cautioned that the online submission of court documents created unique challenges regarding privacy and confidentiality. It will be interesting to see how these challenges are dealt with as the JusticeLink system is fully implemented. For a press release from the Attorney General's Department of NSW, visit: http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/ For additional commentary, see: http://tinyurl.com/37xtaa Summary by: Michael Migus