Database to bring courts up to date

The days of showing up in a court on a speeding offence and getting off lightly because the judge was unaware of previous convictions may be gone forever.

An £11 million information systems development programme for the courts service has just been announced by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, together with the Chief Justice, Mr Liam Hamilton, and Mrs Justice Denham.

The system, which could also pave the way for fines to be paid through the Internet, is being introduced as part of the Government's commitment to ensure the new courts service is equipped with up-to-date technologies before the handover to a new chief executive next month. The new system will link every court in the State to a central database storing all court records and details of previous convictions. More than 60 courts will operate on a private network, providing casetracking systems to support more efficient administration. The system is intended to eliminate delays caused by gardai not being available for cases in which they are involved. The Garda rostering arrangements will be built into it, and the system will schedule hearings accordingly.

The system will be browser-based - it will look and feel like navigating a website. Criminal records and case histories will be at the fingertips of any court regardless of location. Benefits are also expected to accrue to solicitors and anyone interacting with the courts as part of their job - for example, seeking details of convictions or legal proceedings.

The changeover is being driven by the requirement of the Courts Service to protect itself against the millennium bug. At a minimum, the new system must do everything the old system was capable of doing. Gradually other functions will be added to the service, and according to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform the Courts Service aims to be a feature of electronic government.

It may be possible within a year to pay a parking fine over the Internet by credit card or for a solicitor to transmit and receive documents electronically, assuming certain legal issues can be overcome.

According to a department spokesman: "Currently the law requires a pen and ink for everything, so maybe it needs to catch up with the technology to some degree. There are issues around digital authorisation and biometrics that would be among the areas of improvement. We may explore the legalities."

The first phase of the Criminal Case Tracking System will be implemented by next summer, replacing systems in Dublin and Limerick which have Year 2000 problems. By early 2000 it is expected the tracking system will be deployed in every court office throughout the State. The Department of Justice spokesman said the Courts Service is well on course to be ready for 2000.

The new IT infrastructure will be put in place by a consortium led by Ernst & Young - the prime contractor for the overall programme. It also includes systems integrator, ICL, and Exselan, an Irish company specialising in Lotus-based technologies.

The new system will initially be modelled on the framework applied to its Northern Ireland counterpart. However, because the northern model was originally based on an older version of Windows (3.1), the new court system is unique in being browser-based. The early versions of the network will feature Intranet capabilities, which makes the information available to a named number of users. This will gradually extend to the Internet, where anyone wishing to access certain information will be able to do so freely from their desktop.