Legal Information Model
This section considers issues relating to the planning both of systems and of the physical environment required to host them.
5.1 Planning Departmental Information Systems
5.2 Planning of Facilities
In order to achieve JLIB’s goal of an integrated legal system in Jersey, when States Departments and other agencies within the Island’s legal system are planning Information Systems developments, it will be important to include consideration of how these will link to other agencies’ Information Systems. During information gathering for the model, we came across instances which suggested this is not always the case.
In order to ensure that the principles described in sections 3/3.1/3.4 can be achieved, in addition to the recommendations in sections 3/3.1/3.4, it is recommended that:
· each organisation planning or developing a system should consult with other Jersey legal organisations which it might interface with, or potentially be extended to, to ascertain how it might fit in with other existing and planned systems;
· JLIB should take responsibility for holding an overview of major systems and planned and recommended developments, their scope for expansion, and potential points of interaction with each other. The Information Model presented in this report may assist in identifying points of interaction. The high-level model may be used to illustrate the areas covered, or prospectively covered, by each system, to provide a starting point for this analysis - an example of how this might be done is shown in Figure 6.
The above recommendations relate to a number of systems which could be expanded to cover, or exchange information with, other areas:
· the States Police’s Case Preparation System project;
· the COURAS system recently implemented for the Magistrates Court;
· the States Greffe’s planned Document Management system;
· the Law Officers’ Department’s desired replacement for their Dataease document tracking system;
· any relevant JLIB projects such as Electronic Case File Management.
In order to ensure that representatives of key Departments and agencies (such as those interviewed in this study) are kept in touch with IS developments in each other’s areas, it is recommended that JLIB promotes the use of its information sharing forum LINK (Legal Information Network of Knowledge) and encourages Departments to attend; and also that JLIB sends briefings to those organisations which are not represented on JLIB.
In the interviews there appeared to be gaps in some Departments’ awareness of developments in other areas which had the potential to impact on them.
To hold Court proceedings using electronic rather than paper files ("bundles") clearly requires the installation of a significant amount of equipment in the Courtroom, and its positioning is important to enable screens to be comfortably read whilst retaining existing lines of eye contact between participants.
The architecture and character of the Royal Courtroom (and equally the States Chamber which is sometimes used for Royal Court cases) are such that this may prove difficult to achieve.
It is understood that the forthcoming new Magistrates Court complex was designed before the days of the "electronic courtroom" concept and its design may not be ideal for implementing these facilities; it has been suggested that it may be already too late to change the design.
It is recommended that JLIB examine these issues to decide if any action is required before development of the new complex has gone too far. It might also be considered whether the Royal Court should on occasion use these facilities if the "electronic courtroom" can be implemented there better than in the Royal Court itself. It may be that either radical decisions are needed or expectations lowered about implementing the paperless Court in Jersey.
(There may be less of an issue for the Jersey Court of Appeal as it is easier to move furniture in the Old Library.)