Legal Information Model
Appendices
The following processes have been used for the Legal Information Model:
1. Make Legislation
2. Provide Advice and Promote Awareness
3. Initiate Civil Action
4. Represent
5. Provide Police Services
6. Remand Accused
7. Prosecute Accused
8. Resource Courts
9. Run Court Service
10. Make and Publish Judgement
11. Implement Civil Judgement
12. Implement Sentence
13. Provide Prison and Probation Services
14. Register Property Contracts
All of these were examined during the study apart from 13. Provide Prison and Probation Services which was taken from the previous e-government Information Model study.
Listed below are processes related to the Jersey legal system which have not been examined in this study.
· Civil work and cases which are not Actions of one party against another, eg Commercial (which we understand comprises a significant amount of work by private law firms on the Island) (except that Property Contracts have been covered). This would include a third option, viz. Representations, within Step 1 of the process Initiate Civil Action;
· Public Business in the Samedi Division (eg swearing in of various official), except that the registering of laws has been covered;
· the Family Division of the Royal Court (except that a role played by the Probation service is included in step 7 of the Run Court Service process);
· the Heritage Division of the Royal Court;
· the Probate Division of the Royal Court (which was covered to some extent in the Births Deaths & Marriages process in the previous e-government Information Model);
· Inquests (covered to a lesser extent in the Births Deaths & Marriages process in the previous e-government Information Model);
· Insolvency (which is one of the processes in the proposed continuation of the e-government Information Model);
· Control Parking (see section F.1 in Appendix F of this report);
· Arbitration and Conciliation Services ("preventative legal health");
· Inter-Jurisdiction and Reciprocal arrangements (although this report refers to a small number of aspects of this).
· 12/04/00 Bill McGregor, Law Draftsman (Law Draftsman’s Department)
· 13/04/00 Jeannine Hume, Registrar of Deeds (Judicial Greffe)
· 14/04/00 Steven Austin-Vautier, Magistrates Court Greffier (Judicial Greffe)
· 17/04/00 Mike Wilkins, Viscount and Peter de Gruchy, Deputy Viscount (Viscount’s Department)
· 18/04/00 Inspector Mark Houze, Administrative Support Unit (States Police)
· 20/04/00 Barry Sergeant, Assistant Judicial Greffier (Appellate) (Judicial Greffe)
· 26/04/00 Sue Monks (Citizens Advice Bureau)
· 27/04/00 Martin Hewlett, Bailiff’s Secretary (Bailiff’s Chambers)
· 02/05/00 Tony Fauvel, Deputy Judicial Greffier (Judicial Greffe)
· 02/05/00 Advocate Peter Harris (Crills)
· 04/05/00 Tim Allen, Chief Clerk (Law Officers Department)
· 08/05/00 Michael Haines, Assistant Judicial Greffier (Royal Court) (Judicial Greffe)
A briefer conversation was also held with:
· 08/05/00 Pam Staley (Law Draftsman’s Department)
The following also took part in some of the above interviews:
· James Lambert, Strategic Co-ordinator (Judicial Greffe) (JLIB)
· Kate Jeggo (States Computer Services) (Programme Manager, JLIB)
· Douglas Mason (States Computer Services, Legal Information Team)
The following types of identification codes, in use in different Departments, were noted during the study.
D.1 Legislation
D.2 Police Systems
D.3 Law Officers’ Department
D.4 Royal Court - Civil Actions
D.5 Royal Court - Acts of Court
D.6 Royal Court & Jersey Court of Appeal Judgements
D.7 Viscount’s Department
D.8 Public Registry
D.1 Legislation (back to Appendix D)
When a Jersey law has received Royal sanction in Council and is registered in the Royal Court, it is allocated an L number which includes the year and a sequential number within that year, eg L12/2000.
A Regulation or Order is given a sequential R&O number, eg R&O-6083. If it is subordinate to a Law, it will refer to the L number of that Law.
When a draft Law or Regulation is to be laid before the States for debate, it is given a sequential P number (P for Proposition) within the year, eg P38. All propositions to be voted on in the States carry a P number, not only draft laws and draft regulations. This includes amendments to draft laws.
D.2 Police Systems (back to Appendix D)
The States Police Crime Information System (CIS) identifies crime reports in two ways:
· year/type of crime/sequential number within the year, eg 00/CBA/22, where 00 is the year 2000, CBA signifies Assault, and 22 signifies the 22nd assault reported in the year 2000;
· and a 6-digit sequential unique reference number (URN).
The States Police system COPS records information by individual person, identified by Name, Date of Birth, Place of Birth and Nationality.
D.3 Law Officers’ Department (back to Appendix D)
The Dataease system identifies paper documents within the Department (except for the Conveyancing Section) by Main File Number/Sub File Number/Date reference.
· Main File Numbers are for example 400 for Inter-jurisdiction; 230 for Criminal Prosecutions.
· Sub File Numbers are for example 2303 for Criminal Prosecutions; 2301 for Trials.
· A full file reference number might be 2303 (1/2000).
D.4 Royal Court - Civil Actions (back to Appendix D)
Actions adjourned indefinitely are given a Sine Die file reference, including the year and a sequential number within the year, eg SD99/199.
Actions being defended are given a Pending List file reference, including the year and a sequential number within the year, eg PL00/08.
When a case is closed, it is filed in the "Samedi Bundle" by the date of the final hearing.
D.5 Royal Court - Acts of Court (back to Appendix D)
These are referenced by the date that the Order was made followed by the names of the parties, eg 00-04-14 Smith -v- Jones, or 00-04-28 AG -v- Smith.
D.6 Royal Court & Jersey Court of Appeal Judgements(back to Appendix D)
Unreported Judgements are internally referred to by date and parties, eg 00/04/20 Smith v Jones.
They are also given a sequential number within year number, eg 2000/38.
As all unreported judgements since 1997 are now published on the Legal Information website, it is possible to publicly use this sequential code (2000/38) to reference them. Some lawyers are beginning to use this code in their submissions.
However, the official convention has been retained that authorities should be quoted by parties and date in full, eg "Taunton v Planning & Environment Committee (18 April 2000) Jersey Unreported".
This is because, previously, only a subset of unreported judgements were released, and hence carried a different sequential numbering (so that 1/89 might be the same as 89/6 as it might have been the sixth judgement made in 1989 but only the first to be disseminated), so there was a possibility of confusion.
D.7 Viscount’s Department (back to Appendix D)
The Court Enforcement System in the Viscount’s Department identifies documents (eg Acts of Court) using a 5 digit subject identifier, to uniquely identify the person concerned, followed by /, followed by a sequential number which the computer allocates to the document. This code is handwritten on the original document to ensure unique identification.
D.8 Public Registry (back to Appendix D)
The PRIDE system allocates a sequential number to each document indexed, eg 2028691.
Other codes available in the system for future use are Unique Property ID, Housing Consent Number, and Agriculture & Fisheries Number (the equivalent to Housing Consent Number for agricultural land).
This Appendix gives a summary list of the recommendations in the main text, with references to section numbers.
Major recommendations are listed first in E.1, in the order in which they appear in the report; other recommendations are listed in E.2 in the same way.
Only the brief wording of the recommendations has been reproduced here; for full details reference should be made back to the main text of the report in each case.
In a number of areas we recommend that JLIB should perform some function or action. We recognise that JLIB may not ultimately be responsible for all of these actions and may in some areas identify more appropriate bodies.
E.1 Major Recommendations
From Section 3 "End to End" Case Handling
From Section 4 Communications
From Section 5 Planning
From Section 6 Access
From Section 7 Electronic Publication of Authorities
From Section 8 Miscellaneous
E.2 Other Recommendations
From Section 3 "End to End" Case Handling
From Section 4 Communications
From Section 6 Access
From Section 8 Miscellaneous
E.1 Major Recommendations
From Section 3 "End to End" Case Handling(back to Appendix E)
3 It is recommended that JLIB:
· adopts the goal of "end to end" case handling;
· agrees a target timescale for achieving this;
· determines what methods for achieving this are appropriate in each area; and
· adopts a plan to schedule the activities required to achieve it.
3.1 It is recommended that the model of three different levels of information exchange between organisations be adopted (or adapted) by JLIB as a framework for monitoring and guiding developments in legal information systems in Jersey. The related recommendations in 3.4.3 and 5.1 concern guidelines for implementing this.
3.4.3 In order to enable the communication between different organisations’ systems described in 3.4, it is recommended that:
· JLIB should promote dialogue between the organisations through the information sharing forum LINK (as recommended in 5.1);
· each organisation which is running, developing or proposing a system (such as those listed in 5.1) should be responsible for agreeing proactively with each partner organisation, for each piece of information to be transferred between their systems, the format of the data and the details of how it will be transferred;
· JLIB should take responsibility for setting the standards and overall methods to be followed, particularly when information exchanges are planned between multiple systems (eg for criminal cases or civil actions).
3.4.4 It is recommended that plans are made towards creating a unified Case ID, acceptable to all parties, ultimately to be referenced by all parties, to enable the long term goal of "end to end" case handling to be achieved.
3.5 It is recommended that the ideal way to achieve "end to end" case handling is for organisations to adopt Workflow systems (as described in 3.5) with automatic interfaces (as described in 3.4), to allow information on cases to flow automatically across systems, prompting human action when it is needed.
3.6.1 It is recommended that a Workflow system be considered to handle (initially) Civil Actions and Criminal Cases in the Royal Court and Jersey Court of Appeal, including Interlocutory Summonses. This would include the facility for lawyers to submit documents electronically. This could form a central building-block towards future "end to end" case handling.
From Section 4 Communications (back to Appendix E)
4.2 It is recommended that in implementing the recommendations in section 3 to move towards the goal of "end to end" case handling, at each point of information exchange between different systems, the appropriate level of security should be considered and provided; and that the security measures should be made clear to participants in order to allay any concerns or obstacles to moving forward.
From Section 5 Planning (back to Appendix E)
5.1 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.
5.1 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.
5.2 It is recommended that JLIB examine the actual feasibility of installing the equipment necessary for the "electronic Courtroom" in each of Jersey’s existing and proposed Courtrooms, to decide if any action is required before development of the new Magistrates Court 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.
From Section 6 Access (back to Appendix E)
6.3 It is recommended that the points suggested in 6.3.2 - 6.3.12 are considered for enhancing the amount of information about the Jersey legal system publicly available on an Internet website or sites.
6.4 It is recommended that JLIB examine ways in which the new Human Rights legislation will impact on the field of legal information, such as:
· rights of access to information about laws and the legal system in general;
· rights of access to information about any criminal or civil case which involves an individual, or to other records held relating to individuals by organisations within the legal system.
From Section 7 Electronic Publication of Authorities(back to Appendix E)
7.1 It is recommended that a search engine be added to the Legal Information website to enable searches to be carried out across the text of all Unreported Judgements (and other areas of the website).
7.2 It is recommended that consideration be given to including in the header information of each Unreported Judgement a list of the L numbers and R&O numbers for all legislation involved in the Judgement. This might be provided as a drop-down list, where clicking on one of the entries would link to the text of the legislation if available.
From Section 8 Miscellaneous (back to Appendix E)
8.3 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.
E.2 Other Recommendations
From Section 3 "End to End" Case Handling(back to Appendix E)
3.2.2 It is recommended that consideration is given to having systems operating across organisational boundaries between the Magistrates Court Greffe, the rest of the Judicial Greffe, and the Bailiff’s Chambers.
3.2.4 The Magistrates Court Greffe has recently implemented an electronic Court listings and document management system, COURAS. As this system is currently being rolled out, it is recommended that its potential to be extended to be used in the Royal Court is examined. However, the recommendation in 3.6.1 for a Workflow system in the Royal Court should be taken into account alongside the potential for extending COURAS.
3.4.4 If the Prison Service obtain the same system as the Probation Service (ICMS), it is recommended that the option of using a common Person ID with Probation be re-examined.
3.6.4 It is recommended that the desirability of Workflow principles, together with the principles listed in 3.4.3 and 5.1, be taken into account in the Police’s Case Preparation System project.
From Section 4 Communications (back to Appendix E)
4.1 It is recommended that the following possibilities be considered, to see if they are feasible as improvements which can be made now (as well as elements of any future Workflow system as described in 3.5 - 3.6):
· sending Court documents electronically from the Magistrates Court system COURAS to the Viscount’s Department’s Court Enforcement System;
· sending Court information such as "cover page" information from Charge Sheets, and sentences, electronically from COURAS to the Probation Service’s ICMS system;
· sending Acts of Court recording civil judgements against companies to Trade Advisory Bureau Service and to Registry Trust.
4.2.1 When electronic transmission of the Charge Sheet from the Magistrates Court becomes possible, eg to the Police Admin Support Unit (ASU), it is recommended that security measures such as encryption be considered to allay any security concerns about emailing it. Alternatively, Police ASU could be given read-only access to COURAS, again with appropriate security.
4.2.2 It is recommended that security measures such as encryption be examined to facilitate the electronic transmission of Pre-Sentencing Reports from the Probation Service to the various recipients.
4.2.3 The same recommendation may be applicable to other Pre-Sentencing Reports (from Drug & Alcohol Service, Psychological Services, Psychiatric Services, etc.)
4.2.4 The Police ASU send criminal record information to agencies (eg Probation Service) as part of criminal proceedings, and also as a service to a variety of organisations (eg for employment checks). When Police ASU obtain email facilities, it is recommended that they consider encryption or other security measures if there are concerns to be addressed about sending such information by email.
4.3.1 It is recommended that email communication be considered between the Police ASU and the Scottish, Northern Irish and Irish equivalents of the PNC (Police National Computer), as it will bring greater benefits when the Police use electronic transmission more widely to other Jersey agencies, as criminal records could then simply be forwarded by email. (See also 4.2.4 and 6.5.)
4.3.3 & 4.3.4 Although the relationship between the States and the Home Office is clearly outside the scope of this report, it is recommended that the following two areas are explored with the Home Office:
· the possibility of electronic transmission of information between the Home Office and the Jersey Probation Service;
· the possibility of communicating electronically with the Home Office in parallel with forwarding primary legislation to the Home Office for review in preparation for Royal sanction in the Privy Council.
Forwarding an email along the route of the normal diplomatic channels might be another alternative.
4.4.1 A monthly list of property transactions is printed from PRIDE by the Public Registry and sent to a number of subscribers each month. Recommendation: This is another hard copy communication which could at an appropriate point be changed to electronic (email) for those subscribers who can receive it.
4.5.1 Jersey Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) automatically receive new and updated information leaflets from a number of organisations (eg Employment & Social Security Department), whereas in other cases they periodically visit, check and collect leaflet stocks. It is recommended that JLIB sends a request to such organisations, particularly those within the legal system or government, to add CAB to their mailing lists for when new leaflets are published.
4.5.2 Since arrest orders may be implemented at any time, it may sometimes happen that prisoners arrive at HM Prison without being expected. It is recommended that, where this is likely to be the case, at least a telephone call is made from the Police Court Unit or a Viscount’s Officer, as appropriate, to forewarn the Prison that a prisoner is on the way.
From Section 6 Access (back to Appendix E)
6.1.1 It is recommended that the principle be adopted that honorary officers should find it as easy to access electronic systems to do their job as employees or ordinary citizens would. In particular this could be applied to Jurats and Centeniers. Possible consequences are listed in 6.1.1.
6.1.2 It is recommended that consideration is given to making the Court Centenier available prior to a Court session eg by mobile phone, if this is not already the case.
6.2.1 It is recommended that JLIB co-ordinates with other States bodies regarding the provision of public Internet access kiosks.
6.2.2 It is recommended that Jersey Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) are provided with Internet facilities for clients at their premises to use, to allow personal callers to access and search the (extensive) CAB website.
6.4 It is recommended that JLIB determine what information it is desirable to make available to the public, or to parties/victims/accused etc, from a civil rights point of view, irrespective of the new legal requirements.
From Section 8 Miscellaneous (back to Appendix E)
8.1 It is recommended that electronic alternatives to Treasury Stamps 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.
8.2.1 It is recommended that the following are considered, to help reduce the considerable administrative workload involved in booking dates for hearings in the Royal Court:
· external read-only access to the Royal Court Diary by Advocates, eg by publication on an Internet website;
· 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;
· conference calls as an alternative to meetings in the Bailiff’s Chambers to arrange dates for civil hearings;
· conference calls 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).
The Royal Court Workflow system proposed in 3.6.1 includes further suggestions around this area.
Items in this Appendix have been noted during the course of the interviews but have not been examined or verified as they are outside the scope of this study. We cannot comment on their validity or importance but have rather simply noted them as points raised.
F.1 Parking Offences
F.2 Access to Justice
F.1 Parking Offences (back to Appendix F)
It is understood that there is an issue regarding Parking Offences, although this was not examined as the Control Parking process did not form part of this study. If an offender does not pay a parking fine, the Town Hall sends a Summons to the person’s last registered address. If they have moved house or sold the car, and do not appear in Court, their arrest is ordered.
Sometimes a bail option fails to be given on the arrest order from the Court, so in theory the Viscount’s Department should trace the person and put them in prison until a Court appearance, which is inappropriate for a parking offence (the Viscount’s Department would not normally imprison in this case, but would often take the person immediately to Court, which is very time-consuming).
The fact that there is no facility to plead guilty by post is another factor in this.
This issue is mentioned in the Viscount’s Department’s 1999 Annual Report page 7, and in the Judicial Greffe’s 1999 Annual Report page 26, which states that a Working Party produced a report for the new Magistrate who is addressing the problem.
F.2 Access to Justice (back to Appendix F)
The following points were noted in the course of the study as comments relating to Access to Justice and Public Confidence in the Legal System, two objectives of the JLIB strategy. They have not been followed up or checked in any way, but have simply been noted and listed here in case any of them raise points of interest to the Board.
· The requirement for property transactions to be in French makes them less accessible to the parties in most cases.
· Some UK laws, or selected provisions within UK laws, may apply to the Channel Islands but never be registered or formally publicised in the Island - so one may be expected to obey a law with little access to the fact.
· There may be some confusion over the application of the Legal Aid system to accused persons in custody, as conflicting procedures were suggested: "you cannot apply for Legal Aid until you have entered a plea" and "if you have been refused bail you should apply for Legal Aid on your first appearance in Court" (which was the case until recently). We understand that the Legal Aid application can now be made at any time, at Police, Prison or Court, through the Custody Officer; a Duty Advocate is always available in Court when the Accused is in custody in case the Accused requires initial Legal Aid advice before being allocated a Legal Aid lawyer; and the Accused can Reserve Plea pending receiving full Legal Aid advice.
· Only a very small proportion of Not Guilty pleas are entered (perhaps one or two per week): it is not clear whether this implies any inadequacy with the Legal Aid system or any issue with the operation of the Parish Hall Enquiry system.
· Parish Hall Enquiries do not admit representation (except at the discretion of the Centenier) or the public: this might be considered to inhibit access to justice to the suspect and, in a different way, to a victim who feels disadvantaged in not seeing what happens.
· It is possible that a suspect might accept guilt at a Parish Hall Enquiry in the belief that the matter will then be closed, not realising that the admission of guilt will be returned to the States Police and entered as a criminal or pseudo-criminal record against their name on the COPS system.
· When an accused person is remanded in custody from the Magistrates Court to the Royal Court, the 30 day limit between Court appearances does not apply, so they could remain in custody for some time. It may be rare for such cases to result in Not Guilty verdicts, but if they do, no redress appears to be available for the long period in custody.
· Legal Aid is means tested, so it might be possible for someone to imagine the term implied free representation and run up an unexpected bill.
· The taxation of costs means that a litigant (or defendant) can win the case but lost the money.
· As many Jersey lawyers specialise in commercial work, it may be difficult to find a "High Street" lawyer for normal citizen’s issues. It was even suggested that some people may apply for Legal Aid, not because they need the financial support, but as a guaranteed means of securing a lawyer for their "High Street" type work.
· Advocates appear to be very slow in taking a Civil case to Court (whether again because they are generally overstretched with commercial work?) - it is not clear why they appear to ask "how long is it before we have to take this case to Court" rather than "how soon can we". For whatever reason, this may be detrimental to their client.
· The small number of local Judges means that it is not always easy to obtain access to one at short notice (eg for an Injunction to be awarded or overturned).