Monday, October 3 2011

The 2011 Court Technology Conference starts tomorrow, Tuesday October 4. This is where I restart the daily blog.
Last week, I was at the e-justice seminar and workshop by the Judicial Studies Center of the Americas, CEJA, in Santiago, Chile. It was their first seminar on courts and IT. Participants from Brazil, Costa Rica and Chile gave an overview of developments in their judiciaries. Brazil now has a Judicial Council, and it is doing a project in electronic work processes. About 600 different work processes are being supported electronically. The system is already operational in two courts, with about 100 users. Courts participate on a voluntary basis, and about 55% of them actually do so. Costa Rica, by far the most IT-equipped judiciary of Latin America, is experimenting with notifications by email and fax.
At CEJA’s request I gave an overview of the findings in my book. Francesco Contini of IRSIG in Italy compared UK’s Money Claim On Line, Austrian Elektronischer Rechtsverkehr and French e-barreau on the point of development strategy. The lessons are to keep things simple, use standard components, learn from experience, build on what you already have, and not to over-regulate things.
The workshop the next day was on CEJA’s plan for an index of judicial services. It is still very much in development.