Judges get digital

Sir Brian Leveson, the President of the Queen’s Division, has called for more sophisticated technology to be installed in the courts.

In a speech to the Modernising Justice 2015 conference, in London this week, Sir Brian said technology was “essential” to any attempt to run the criminal justice system for less.

“The amount of paper we now have to wrestle with is almost unmanageable and, on top of that, the amount of electronic material which emanates from e mails and a myriad of other sources is unimaginably huge,” he said. 

In May 2014, the Lord Chancellor announced a £700m package to improve court and tribunal administration. A programme to introduce digital case files in the Southwark and Leeds Crown Court and in civil cases in the Rolls Building, will complete in October.

The judiciary are switching from the Government Secure Internet to Windows 365 and a service called eJudiciary, while wifi is being installed in criminal courts, with civil and family courts soon to follow suit, he said.

While history was littered with expensive government IT failures, and while some judges may prefer to work with paper, the new, more digitally-oriented justice system was a “once-in-a-generation opportunity”, he said.

“We simply cannot carry on cost cutting, salami slicing our approach, trying to do the same thing for less money and it will be far better as a result.”