Legal Information Model
This section describes a number of issues and recommendations which do not fall into the groupings of sections 3 to 7.
8.1 Treasury Stamps
8.1.1 Electronic submission of Billets with Summonses and Orders of Justice
8.1.2 Property Contracts
8.1.3 Other Uses
8.2 Scheduling
8.2.1 Scheduling of the Royal Court
8.2.2 Scheduling of Law Draftsmen’s Time
8.3 Use of Model
The issue of finding a replacement for the current system of Treasury Stamps to pay fees on legal documents has been raised, not primarily for the sake of potential efficiency gains per se, but because as long as stamps need to be physically attached to documents submitted, the procedure cannot be converted into electronic form - so the necessity of Treasury Stamps as the only means of payment could inhibit moves to computerise and integrate legal systems.
If Summonses and Billets, and Orders of Justice with their covering letters, are to be submitted electronically to the Greffe (for civil actions in the Royal Court or Petty Debts Court) as suggested in 3.6.1, a replacement is required for the Treasury Stamps system of payment. Currently, Stamps to the appropriate value are purchased from the States Treasury by the litigant/lawyer and attached to the Billet (or to the cover page in the case of an Order of Justice).
The present system is relatively simple to administer - the Greffe only need to check that the correct stamps have been affixed, and no further accounting then needs to take place - there is no need to record transactions, calculate fees or issue invoices. However, the system may be less convenient for the litigant/lawyer.
An alternative to Treasury Stamps will be needed if fully electronic initiation of civil actions is to be made possible. It is therefore recommended that options be examined such as:
· a system to record chargeable items, calculate the correct fee and invoice the client, as part of any future new computer system in the Judicial Greffe Samedi Section;
· or an electronic version of Treasury Stamps if feasible/sensible;
· or any other methods developed by other jurisdictions.
In the case of registration of property contracts, the stamp duty fees can comprise considerable sums of money, and the existing method of purchasing Treasury Stamps is cumbersome for the users. Refunds are also sometimes required, which causes inconvenience. This therefore gives another incentive for providing an alternative system, as in 8.1.1, which could be applied to property transaction stamp duty.
Similarly, if an electronic method of payment is made available, this could also replace other current uses of Treasury Stamps. These include other payments to the Judicial Greffe (eg for Probate), and to the Viscount’s Department (eg for enforcement of a civil judgement).
There are a number of issues which make the scheduling of the Royal Court an important and not straightforward exercise:
· Court time is a limited and valuable resource (both in terms of Courtroom facilities and in terms of Judges’ and Jurats’ time);
· the Bailiff’s civic engagements reduce his availability for Court;
· there is a limited number of other Judges available;
· there are limitations on dates when Assizes can take place;
· there is no penalty for over-booking Court time which is not then required (although the Bailiff’s Secretary negotiates a mutually acceptable estimate);
· the Bailiff’s Secretary needs to keep appraised of the likelihood of last minute out-of-Court settlement freeing up booked time, and where possible maintains backup plans to utilise such time if it becomes available.
The current procedure for Civil Actions is that both Advocates visit the Bailiff’s Secretary to negotiate a suitable date and duration for the hearing, which the Bailiff’s Secretary books into the electronic Court Diary.
For Criminal Cases, the Attorney General’s Chief Clerk has access to the electronic Court Diary to view possible dates; he checks the availability of the Crown Advocate and Defence Advocate, a procedure which often includes asking their secretaries to check their electronic diaries; he then visits the Bailiff’s Secretary to agree the date and duration for trial or sentencing. (This date must then be confirmed in Court.)
In both instances, the Bailiff’s Secretary takes into account various issues including the availability of a suitable Judge for the case.
There is no simple answer to the issues listed above, which are managed on a day-to-day basis by the Bailiff’s Secretary, but the following suggestions are offered to make the administration slightly easier:
· external read-only access to the Royal Court Diary, eg by publication on an Internet website, could assist Advocates with an involvement in planning Court dates (the Attorney General’s Chief Clerk and the Viscount’s Department currently have access);
· access to private Advocates’ electronic diaries (at least "public" versions of their diaries) by each other and by the Attorney General’s Chief Clerk and the Bailiff’s Secretary could similarly assist;
· conference calls could be considered as an alternative to meetings in the Bailiff’s Chambers to arrange dates for civil hearings - the current system can be expensive in lawyers’ time. (Although the necessity of lawyers’ involvement is sometimes questioned, we understand that the timing and duration of a trial can be important issues for the parties to agree);
· similarly, conference calls could be considered as an alternative to meetings at the Judicial Greffe to arrange dates for Interlocutory Summonses (this is a slightly different issue from the scheduling of the Royal Court);
· Case Management is now starting to be introduced, whereby the Judge holds a preliminary planning meeting with the Advocates;
· when a new Assize date is fixed, some sort of automatic notification to the Viscount’s Department to trigger the Jury Selection process might be helpful, perhaps as part of the system proposed in 3.6.1.
It is recommended that implementation of the first four points above are considered, to help reduce the considerable administrative workload involved in booking dates for hearings. The Royal Court Workflow system proposed in 3.6.1 includes further suggestions around this area.
At any one time, many pieces of draft legislation await instructions from sponsoring Departments. The timing of the Departments’ responses is largely out of the control of the Law Draftsmen’s Department. We understand this makes the scheduling of the Department’s workload difficult to manage: if a number of new instructions were received at the same time, the Department could be unable to react in a timely manner.
This situation has not been examined sufficiently to make any recommendations, but is noted here as another issue related to scheduling.
The high-level model shown in figures 1 and 2 in section 2.3 (and used to illustrate points within sections 3 to 8), together with the detailed model of the 14 processes in Appendix G, may be of value in communicating the nature of the legal processes to those not directly involved in each process. The model inevitably gives a simplified view of each process, but this may prove useful as an introduction to some of the areas. It is possible that no other up to date summary of the Jersey legal system exists in this kind of form.
It is recommended that the Legal Information Model developed in this study (or at least the high-level flowchart together with the 14 process flowcharts) is presented on the Internet, adapted if necessary, and with some introductory explanation, as an introductory guide to the Jersey legal system.
The model may also prove of value to JLIB in implementing the recommendations in this report, especially those in sections 3 and 5.1. It may prove of assistance in analysis work for these initiatives, and JLIB may find a need to further enhance it, or to update it as systems develop.