Previous Document

3.5. Victoria


Courtlink, developed by the Victorian Attorney General's Department, aims to
computerise the administration of all three levels of Victoria's courts: see
Greenleaf (1991) and Fitzgerald (1992). Since 1991 59 magistrates courts
throughout Victoria have been linked to a central mainframe. The magistrate
uses the system to view case details and to enter orders, and the system is
used for other case management and penalty enforcement purposes.

County Court registries have a caseflow management system for civil matters,
but there is as yet no caseflow management system for criminal matters.
Judges' secretarial staff have a network of personal computers. Each judge has
been provided with a laptop personal computer and two text retrieval and
document management programs, Retrieve and ISYS. Various judges are using
these programs for transcript retrieval, and for taking notes and creating
indexes concerning exhibits, evidence etc. Judge's chambers are now being
linked in a local area network which it is intended will allow access to
statutes and judgments (reported and unreported). The County Court has a
Computerisation Committee chaired by Jones J. The Supreme Court also has a
case management system for civil matters (but not for criminal matters), using
a local area network of personal computers. Supreme Court Judges have also
been provided with laptop computers, but these are not yet linked in a local
area network.

The Victorian Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) illustrates
the difficulties that some prosecutorial agencies in Australia face in making
effective use of information technology. The ODPP has 110 solicitors but only
four laptop computers for use in court for litigation support purposes, all of
which are in constant use. In the office, there are seven desktop personal
computers on solicitor's desks, but these are used primarily for accessing the
case management system, not for litigation support. The ODPP also uses the
Retrieve program (for document summaries) and ISYS program (for transcript
retrieval), as well as Q&A.



                                                            Next Document