I. Introduction

A. Purpose of the document

This  document  shall  evaluate  how  an  IT-System  can  be  used  effectively  for  Courts.  It  intends  to  find  out  which  will  be  the  impacts  on  the  one  hand  on  the  personnel  of  the  courts (mainly judges and secretaries) and on the other hand on the public (citizens and  parties of court proceedings). There are technical and social factors which contribute to  the  effects  of  the  implementation  of  an  IT-System  at  the  courts.  First  this  study  will  describe how to approach to the measurements of efficiency in a court system. Further  there will be evaluated how the Project CCMIS 2007 is technically structured and which  infrastructure is necessary in order to run the System efficiently at administration and in  public.  Here  will  be  also  shown  which  impacts  can  have  the  information  technology  technically to court proceedings (duration of proceedings, backlogs etc.). After that this  study  shall  give  an  overview  about  the  public  perception  of  the  Justice  System  in  comparison  with  other  countries  and  finally  there  are  collected  the  social  factors  and  measurements of efficiency in the Judiciary to which a case management system in the  courts can contribute by using it effectively.

 

B. Approaches to the measurements

a) Technical approaches

There  are  relevant  techniques  of  measuring  the  grade  of  technical  furnishing  of governmental  institutions  such  as  the  sophistication  index  of  Internet-  and  Webapplications¹  or  the  coverage  of  the  regarding  institutions  with  Network  in  percentage. Also it is measurable how good the distribution of equipment (Hardware) is  provided for a given system. Does every person who needs to work with the IT-system  has his own workstation, how many servers are in the Network (has every court a local  server?)  and  is  there  one  unified  network  for  all  courts  (with  a  central  database).  The results of the evaluations of these measurements and questions will be shown below in  point II. A. (Technical infrastructure at the Courts).

b) Social approaches

To  measure  the  social  impacts  in  numbers  is  more  difficult  then  to  measure  technical  infrastructure  and  system  coverage.  Nevertheless  there  are  different  approaches  for  measuring  the  social  impacts  of  political  or  administrative  actions  taken  by  the  authorities in order to improve efficiency and transparency in their systems. Such as for  example the measurement of Accessibility and Usage of court services by the citizens  in  comparison  with  other  European  Countries  (= correlation  between  citizens  and  case  numbers). It can be measured also by the  Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of the  organization  Transparency  International  (TI)  in  Berlin,  Germany  ².  Because  the  latter  depends  mostly  of  the  perception  which  the  public  has  of  the  Justice  System  in  its  country we will concentrate mostly on the accessibility and usage of the court system as  at least one significant number for how strongly the people use their court system. We  will  see  the  results  of  these  measurements  below  in  Point  III.  A.  and  B.  (Public  perception of the Judiciary).

II. Project CCMIS 2007

A. Technical Infrastructure at the Courts

Until August 2006 there was no unified IT-System and no Network in place at most of  the  Albanian  Courts.  6  Courts  out  of  38  have  been  provided  by  USAID  and  the  Soros  Foundation with Network and the Ark-IT Case Management System. 3 Courts have been  provided  by  the World  Bank  with  Network  and  the  CCMIS  Case  Management  System.  The  rest  of  the  Albanian  Courts  did  neither  have  an  IT-System  nor  the  necessary  infrastructure for it. 

In September  2006  EURALIUS, in  the  framework  of  the  CARDS  2003  Project  (EuropeAid/122786/C/AL)³,  started  the  distribution  of  20  LAN  Networks,  20  Servers,  176 PC’s and 46 Network Printers. In the contract with the European Union it was also  foreseen to install the CCMIS Case Management System in all Albanian Courts which  deal with civil cases (35 Courts countrywide). 

a) Coverage

By the end of 2006 therefore there shall be in place the necessary infrastructure for a  countrywide  IT  system.  All  courts  have  got  a  local  data  server,  each  judge  and  each  secretary has got a computer and each computer is connected via Local Area Network  (LAN) cabling with the local server. Therefore the coverage of equipment and system in  the  civil  courts  is  100%  (=  35  civil  courts  out  of  35  in  total,  are  equipped)  and  the  coverage of equipment and system in total of all courts is 92,1% (= 35 civil courts out  of  38  courts  in  total).  The  coverage  of  secretaries  and  judges  with  PC’s  is  now  also  100%, though some of the court personnel has to work with older PC’s.

  ............images

This graphic shows how sophistication of systems is measured.  With the Project CCMIS  2007 Albania significantly increases his sophistication up to the status of 50% - 75%.  The Infrastructure for a countrywide information System is prepared and the IT-program  shall provide information about cases and their proceedings. Also one-way interaction  shall  be  possible  soon  via  the  courts’  webpages  (public  court  schedule and  visibility  of  final court decisions). 

B. Functions of the countrywide case management System

Documenting cases electronically means making traceable every action of the court  personnel. Judges will have more control over their own actions. Date and time of each  access are logged and every action in the system can be traced and reproduced. Thus  there will be more control and transparency.

The distribution of cases  is  done  by the system by a lottery.  This  makes  sure  that  there  is  an  unpredictable  and  not  susceptible  assignment  of  judges  with  certain  cases. It can not be foreseen by the parties or by the lawyer which judge will receive the  case before raising the lawsuit at the court and before the registration of the case by the  secretary. Thus there will be an independent and secure distribution of cases.

Entering  data  and  protocols  of  the  trials  is  foreseen  to  be  done  while  the  public  process  is  held  in  the  courtroom.  The  courts  have  to  make  sure  to  have  a  PC  in  the  courtrooms.  Any  changes  of  the  protocol  after  the  trial  are  possible  but  will  be  logged  and  are  traceable  as  well.  Thus  there  cannot  be  uncontrolled  changes  of  the  trial  protocols.

Internet  Connection  is  foreseen  by  the  Ministry  of  Justice  and  the  judicial  budgetary  office. This is necessary to follow up cases in other courts and in the instances (Appeal  Courts and High Court). Thus there will be access to all cases countrywide.

Unified Archiving of the cases allows to find closed cases in a fast way in the system  and  gives  information  about  date  and  time  of  the  actions  saved  in  the  case files. Thus  court personnel is enabled to work more efficiently.

C. Effects on Duration of Proceedings and Backlogs

The implementation of the electronic case management system will contribute to shorten  the duration of proceedings and to avoid backlogs.  The time-consuming lottery procedure, at many courts carried out in the presence of all  judges,  will  be  obsolete,  as  the  lottery  is  done  electronically.  The  records  can  be  produced  directly  during  the  sessions,  meaning the  secretaries  will  not  need  additional  time for transcription and the judges will be able to use them immediately for their further  work on the cases. The judges will need much less time to organize their work, because  they  can  easily  check  the  state  of  all  their  cases  themselves  at  any  time  they  want,  without  having  the  physical  file  in  front  of  them.  For  the  same  reason,  the  risk  to  miss  any legal or self-imposed deadline will be almost zero.

The  statistics  are  continuously  produced  by  the  system.  Thus  the  judges  (and  the  chairmen) can recognize developing backlogs at an early stage, when  it is still easy to  take appropriate measures fighting backlog accumulation. 

The  time  needed for  communication  between  judges  and  secretaries  about the  current  state of the case or the current location of the file will be essentially reduced.

The  secretaries  will  need  far  less  time  to  produce  summonses,  judgments  and  other  documents, because they can use templates, copy-paste and auto-fill functions.

III. Public Perception of the Judiciary

There  are  quite  different  statements  and  numbers  regarding  the  confidence,  accessibility and transparency of the Judiciary in the member states of the European  Union.  Some  Countries have  a  really  good  acceptance  and  a  high  appreciated  justice  service  in  the  public  perception.  Others  are  in  average  appreciation  and  in  some  countries  public  still  is  not  or  very  few  confident  in  his  national  justice  system.  In  the  below  figures  there  shall  be  provided  a  short  statement  about  accessibility  and  confidence of the citizens in their justice system.

A. European Countries

a) Accessibility and Confidence in the courts

Court Services are accessed by the citizens in quite different intensity in the European  Countries. The number of the population in relation to the cases registered in the courts  shows  how many cases are registered  per  100  citizens  in  one  year. These  numbers  include  criminal  and  civil  cases  (the total  caseload  of the  courts)  per  100  citizens.  The  more cases/100 citizens are registered the more we can think that people use and trust  the Justice System. It also means that people are struggling more before the courts and  do not have other efficient measures of solving their problems with their citizen fellows.

Here  is  the  graphic  visualization  of  the  number  of  cases  registered  per  100  citizens  in  some European countries in comparison with the number of Albania:

................images

Sources:  Statistical  offices  and  Ministries  of  Justice  of  the  Countries,  Eurostat  (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1072,41026555&_dad=portal&_s chema=PORTAL). 

A broad Justice statistics source is also the website of the  Finnish office of statistics  (www.stat.fi,  http://www.stat.fi/tup/kirjasto_kokoelmat/tilastot_en.html)  where  data  and  links about other European countries can be found also.

b) Corruption Perceptions Index

The following statistic shows how people think in terms of  corruption about their court  system and how strong is confidence in an efficient and transparent Justice System.  The  Corruption  Perceptions  Index  shows  that  there  is  quite  different  confidence  in  the  Court  Systems  of  the  European  Countries.  Central  European  and  north  European  countries have a higher score of trust in their judicial systems. East and south European  countries have a lower score of confidence in an efficient justice system.  The index scores from 0-10 where 0 means low and 10 means highly transparent and  efficient Justice System. 10 is the score with the lowest corruptions.

..........images

We  can  see  that  the  two  measurements  of  court  access  and  transparency  at  least  coincide in some of the countries which allows the conclusion that a country’s Justice  System is more or less corrupt / transparent in the European comparison.

B. Albanian Situation

Albania  is  still  in  the  zone  of  the  most  corrupt  countries  and  it  also  has  much  less cases registered per 100 citizens. This on the one hand depends on lower confidence of the Albanian citizens in a fair justice System and on the other hand may also depend on  the  existing  possibilities  of  other  measures  to  solve  the  problems.  Thus  social  organizations, family or clan mentality (even somehow self-justice) has still an important  position in Albania.

.......images

Even from politicians we can hear often that corruption is a big problem in Albania and  international  organizations  also  confirm  this  opinion⁴.  There  are  lots  of  efforts  to  reduce  corruption  and  increase  transparency  of  Albania’s  Justice  System.  One  of  these  efforts  shall  also  be  the  installation  of  a  countrywide  IT-System  in  the  Albanian  Courts. Judges will be traceable in their  work and cases will be stored transparently in  an  electronic  filing  system  which  allows  to  control  the  court  personnel  and  their  actions in the court proceedings.

Anyway it has to be said that many judges in Albania are not corrupt. The reason for the  public opinion on corruption in Albania is also that the public is repeating steadily that  in case a decision is not opportune for one party, for sure the judge has been corrupted.  Showing  the  public  that there  will  be  more control  over  the  Justice  System  will  be  an  important measure to gain its confidence in the Albanian Court System.

IV. Effective Use of the IT-System at the Courts

A. Training of the Users

a) Impact on court personnel

Better  trained  court  personnel  is  also  contributing  a  big  part  of  a  more  efficient  justice system. The  secretaries  and judges  are  trained  on  how  to  use the  information  technology  (basic  computer  literacy)  and  how  to  use  the  case  management  system  (detailed  training  on  the  IT-System).  They  will  be  able  to  deal  faster  with  requests  for  information about the cases from lawyers or other interested parties. It will not always be  necessary  to  have  the  physical  file  for  working  at  the  case  as  most  of  the  data  and  actions of the case are saved in the electronic case file.

b) Impact on the public

The  public  will  gain  confidence  in  a  more  transparent  and  efficient  justice  System,  because  they  can  rely  on  a  well trained  and  equipped  court  personnel  which  deals  with their cases.

B. Standardized electronic documentation of Cases

a) Impact on court personnel

Protocols of the trial sessions and the court decisions are saved in the system. They  can  always  be  reviewed  by  the  court  personnel  at  any  stage  of  the  case.  The  court  schedule  documents  timeframes  and  dates  of  the  court  hearings.  The  court  personnel  has  access  to  this  data  at  any  time  and  does  not  need  always  the  physical  case  file.  Judges  should  also  be  able  to  read  other  decisions.  Thus  they  will  be  aware  of  how  similar cases have been decided.

b) Impact on the public

Parties can request print outs of the trial protocols and review if the court sessions were  recorded  correctly.  Parties,  lawyers  and  other  interested  citizens  can  see  the  court  decisions  which  are  published  by  the  courts.  This  will  enhance  the  level  of  judicial  discussion and contribute to a more uniform jurisprudence in Albania. Thus the Albanian  citizens  will  gain  confidence  in  having  more  equality  before  the  courts  and  in  being  treated  equally  before  the  law.  Therefore  transparency  and  confidence  in  the  justice  system will increase significantly.

V. Conclusions and final remarks

Although  for  sure  it  will  need  some  time  to  get  familiar  with  the  Information  Technology, the use of the Case Management System in the courts will increase  transparency  and  is  an  important  measure  to  fight  corruption  in  the  justice  system. 

Therefore  the  Courts  should  be  able  to  provide  the  public  with  a  more  professional service and a more unified application of law in all the country.

There  are  still  some  issues  which  have  to  be  solved  for  the  well  functioning  of  the  electronic case management system in Albania.

 

   Internet Connection for all Courts: in order to access to all cases countrywide

(central  database  at  the  High  Court)  and  to  publish  decisions  in  Internet,  all  courts will need Internet access as soon as possible.

  Expansion  to  the  criminal  cases:  the  system  shall  be  extended  to  cover  criminal  cases  as  soon  as  possible.  Therefore  it  has  to  be  concluded  a  development contract with a local company.

   Webpages for the publication of decisions and schedules

The  courts  and the  public  shall  receive  an  internet  access to  the  decisions  and  the court schedule. Therefore it has to be concluded a development contract with  a local company.

  Maintenance  contract:  for  a  sustainable  and  stable  running  system  steady  technical  assistance  will  be  necessary.  Therefore  it  has  to  be  concluded  a  maintenance contract with a local company.

 

EURALIUS Mission

European Assistance Mission to the Albanian Justice System

 

Tirana, on 15 January 2007

Gerald Colledani

Head of Mission

 

Johannes Schimpelsberger

Expert on Case Management and Court Administration 

To:

• Mr. Aldo Bumçi, Minister of Justice          
• Mr. Eduard Halimi, Deputy Minister of Justice
• Mr. Fatos Bundo, Director of PIU, MoJ     
• Ms. Enkeledi Hajro, General Director of Justice Matters, MoJ
• Mr. Sokol Pasho, Director of Judicial Organization, MoJ
• Mr. Thimjo Kondi, Chairman of the High Court
• Mr. Ilir Panda, Deputy Chairman of the High Council of Justice 
• Ms. Lora Ujkaj, Delegation of the European Commission in Albania
• Mr. Clas Nykvist, Delegation of the European Commission in Albania
• All Chairmen of the Albanian Courts