IBM PC300GL Celeron 6275, 6285 (61H1061) Motherboard
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1. more or less the same thing CMAs provide an organized way to link Case name and number and type Parties to the case Events dates and elapsed time Judgments and outcomes The life story of a case is quite similar in both systems The program is fundamentally indifferent to the differences between civil and common law The CMA is an organizing and counting tool and it simply needs to know Parties and events and dates From this mixture of parties events and dates the electronic case system constructs a tree of decision points and decisions The core processes of a CMA are strikingly simple not very different from the manual processes already in place in the non automated court e First the CMA records the parties to the case e Then the CMA assigns a unique number e Then typically the CMA sets a first hearing and it may also randomly select a judge to hear the case Thereafter as the case progresses the CMA keeps track of the types and dates of case events It will keep a record as the court creates the following indicative kinds of events in both civil and common law systems e Holds hearings on the case many in civil few in common e If needed it will record the judge s decision to call parties to produce documents lots of this in civil less in common e Sends the process server to deliver something to one of the parties recording dates of service and dates for the parties to respond c2. CMA in order to reduce case delay through more transparent information about case status and better and more timely reporting This is not a broad field manual on the full range of management choices relating to court automation Rather it considers some mundane but significant issues facing the potential first time CMA user or the donor considering supporting a first time CMA intervention in a court system e Does one have to choose a CMA from a civil code country if one s courts are civil code courts And vice versa for common law courts e Changing CMA from one language to another e Can I add or change features of an off the shelf system e Do I want a client server system with distributed capabilities e Ordo I want a mainframe system with slave terminals that concentrates control in a few hands e Do I want a Local Network within one court or a Wide Area Network linking many courts e Do I want to distribute data and views via the Internet or on a dedicated system e Whom do I want to empower with the architecture of my system e What is an example of the kinds of software and hardware that might be involved in automating case management in a large court and in a small court 1 Do I have to choose a CMA from a civil code country if my courts are civil code courts And vice versa for common law courts The short answer is No Case Management applications like spreadsheet programs or word processing programs all do
3. automatically begin to use that info to manage things This problem will persist unless as court manager you do a great deal of work to reshape the culture actually the many sub cultures of the organization These changes fall outside the scope of this technical note but the writer feels it incumbent to underscore how much of the process of moving onto a new CMA is not technological but human and managerial Again the reader is encouraged to consult the soon to be published NCSC handbook on case management commissioned by the Democracy and Governance Center of the United States Agency for International Development and scheduled for publication in the second half of 2001 This guide lays out some of the fundamental CMA building blocks The equipment and software are costly project inputs so a project manager is more comfortable if she knows what equipment and software other projects have used in comparable settings A short technical summary of the equipment and software used in two Egyptian first instance courts is follows below These specifications are not suggested as a template but rather as one example of the equipment selected to automate case management in two pilot courts 3 Technical data for the automation of two pilot first instance courts in Egypt Information Technology Activity Description For Reference in Planning Designing Court Automation Activities The Automation elements in the two courts consist of five kinds of a
4. port 2 CISCO Catalyst 2820 Ethernet Switch 24 port 1 port 100Base PCs 40 IBM PC300 GL P233X 32 MB RAM IBM P70 176 Monitor Win98 Arabic Other 4 HP 5si Laser Printers 5 A PC training laboratory which provides an permanently installed client server LAN based location for the provision of computer training to Egyptian Judges and to Ministry staff A permanent cadre of computer training specialists has been developed along with training doctrine and detailed procedures for the design and conduct of computer training programs Technical details Servers 2 Compaq Proliant 1600R 6 300 Windows NT 4 0 Network LAN Fiber Optic UTP CATS cables CISCO Catalyst 2916M XL Ethernet Switch 16 port CISCO Catalyst 2820 Ethernet Switch 24 port 1 port 100Base PCs 20 IBM PC300 GL P233X 32 MB RAM IBM P70 176 Monitor Win98 Arabic MS Office Arabic Other HP 5si Laser Printers
5. Key Issues in Adopting a Computer Based Case Management System Professor John Stuart Blackton Cairo Egypt April 2001 draft There are probably three reasons why courts that have not already done so may seek to put their case files into a computer based case management application CMA They may seek to convert to a CMA in order to modernize their court and appear more up to date They may perceive a CMA as a tool to ensure complete and accurate records and reduce file tampering And lastly and most importantly the court may seek to convert to a computer based case management application in order to reduce case delays through more accurate and timelier reporting on case status This author would venture the perhaps controversial opinion that only the last of these three reasons is sufficient to justify the effort and cost associated with converting to an automated CMA The appearance of modernity is surely insufficient and the promise that automation of records will enhance case security in a setting where file tampering is a prevalent part of the court culture is illusory If either at the national level or at the court level senior judicial managers are seeking better tools to reduce case delay then an automated CMA offers some genuine advantages over manual case file files A computer based CMA cannot however substitute for active court management nor can it replace the absolutely essential positive role
6. ctivities 1 Acustom built Arabic Language event tracking and database management system to track and manage court cases from inception to final disposition This client server system is built on an IBM Lotus Domino Platform This system has been installed in the North Cairo courts and is currently being installed in the courts of Ismailia The program is an Arabic language adaptation based upon the court management system of the High Courts of Australia with extensive local modifications to reflect procedures and systems in the Egyptian Judiciary An Egyptian software house performed both the program modifications and the Arabization Technical details Servers 2 Compaq Proliant 5500R Servers Pentium II Xeon TM 500 Mhz Quad Processors Windows NT 4 0 Network LAN Fiber Optic UTP CATS cables x CISCO Catalyst 2916M XL Ethernet Switch 16 port PCs 87 Dell Optiplex GX 110 500 Mhz 64 MbRAM 6 4GB IDE Hard Drive Win98 Arabic Other 2 A custom built Arabic Language case initiation and cash receipting system used for court front counter operations This is a client server system built on an IBM DOS platform This program supports the customer court interface assigning case numbers random assignment of judges to cases calculation of court fees and receipting and ledgering the fees paid at case initiation The program was written by an Egyptian software house on specifications developed by AOJS and the Court Technical detai
7. d to take a free copy of neighboring state s 6 million case management system because the felt that their needs were different and needed an entirely new system to reflect those differences Was this a wise choice Probably not In most cases if one finds a CMA that has many of the general characteristics that one is seeking and if it can be had at modest or no cost it makes more sense to acquire and modify than to build from scratch In point of fact for our pilot civil code first instance courts in Egypt we chose to work from a robust CMA which had been developed for the common law high courts of Australia We encountered very few problems in rebuilding our Australian created system to reflect the transactions in our courts A good CMA Case Management Application is constructed to permit an infinite number and variety of events to be included So in rebuilding the Australian system we might choose to discard the function labeled if this is an aboriginal land case then transfer to case ledger C and we give that function some other task such as If this case is a civil signature verification case then transfer to Ledger D A sometimes confusing issue has to do with the phenomenon of new names but similar processes First time CMA users often imagine that an outside system won t work for them because it uses unfamiliar names to describe case events The program is quite indifferent however and works just as well whe
8. ls Servers 1 IBM Netfinity 3000 Server Pentium IT 400 MHz Windows NT 4 0 Network LAN UTP CATS cables 1 Ethernet desktop Hub Model 8237 PCs 5 IBM SureOne A02 Point of Sale POS Workstation 200 MHz 64 MB RAM Microsoft Windows 98 Arabic COBOL Runtime w license 3 Conventional office automation A client server LAN was provided for the largest training center in the Egyptian Judiciary This system uses standard Arabic office programs Microsoft Word Excel etc to support standard office documentary and reporting functions Technical details Servers 2 Compaq Proliant 1600R 6 300 Windows NT 4 0 Network LAN Fiber Optic UTP CATS cables CISCO Catalyst 2916M XL Ethernet Switch 16 port CISCO Catalyst 2820 Ethernet Switch 24 port 1 port 100Base PCs 20 IBM PC300 GL P233X 32 MB RAM IBM P70 176 Monitor Win98 Arabic MS Office Arabic Other HP 5si Laser Printers 4 Automated Arabic word processing centers A client server LAN system to permit the court typists to use modern Arabic word processing to prepare the texts of final judgments in civil commercial and tax cases Two networks have been installed one with about 30 workstations and one with about five workstations Each is built around the Arabic Microsoft Word application Technical details Servers 2 Compaq Proliant 1600R 6 300 Windows NT 4 0 Network LAN Fiber Optic UTP CATS cables 1 CISCO Catalyst 2916M XL Ethernet Switch 16
9. n the events are renamed and re sequenced Changing languages however is something else Once can move from English to Spanish simply by changing fonts But if one wants to shift into Arabic or Japanese then there are some significant issues All the numbers read in a different sequence The sentences and sequences in Arabic flow from right to left rather than left to right The Boolean structure of searches is different for example This exotic language problem turns out to be a bid deal In fact it can be a show stopper Some programs simply can t be rebuilt to run in Arabic or Japanese So a new CMA user might well find that she couldn t move the Costa Rican system to Morocco because the source code simply wouldn t Arabize We chose the Australian national system partly because the platform engine IBM Domino in versions 5 0 and higher has been built to work in Chinese and Arabic as well as English because the proprietors IBM had deep pockets and paid for the heavy development costs to deal with up and down languages and right to left languages 2 Moving beyond Civil vs Common Law considerations When the first time user looks at existing examples of CMAs he is likely to be struck by the look of the data screens the views Some interesting operational questions confronting a CMA user who is starting in a virgin setting without a previous automated case management application have t
10. o do with what views of the data to provide to whom and what reports to provide to whom Although one s first impressions of a CMA usually have to do with views they are not really the best place to begin thinking about what kind of system to select Most systems can be reshaped to offer a wide variety of views to suit the needs and tastes of the court leadership and the court administrators There is however one practical choice that must be made relatively early on The initiator of a new court management system has to decide on a basic technological framework She must ask herself e DoI want a client server system with distributed capabilities e Ordo I want a mainframe system with slave terminals that concentrates control in a few hands e Do I want a Local Network within one court or a Wide Area Network linking many courts e DoI want to distribute data and views via the Internet or on a dedicated system e Whom do I want to empower with the architecture of my system The National Center for State Courts soon to be published field manual for donors deals at some length with the specific kinds of data and information one needs in the CMA parties events etc and in fact these are found in every case management application that this writer has encountered As with modern Word processing programs there is no real debate about the core functions of a case management application The American state court and munici
11. of the judge in taking personal responsibility for case scheduling and minimization of delay A computer based CMA can improve upon even a well designed and well implemented system of manual files in that it can offer a real time window into the current status of all cases and it can permit a chief justice or court administrator to pinpoint systemic sources of delay The sources may have to do with particular categories of events in Egypt the physical transfer of cases between the Courts and the Judicial Experts Department stands out at a significant source of lost time not associated with added value for example The sources of delay pinpointed by the CMA may have to do with the behavior of particular persons a judge who regularly takes far longer than his colleagues to decide cases or a process server who regularly fails to serve parties much more frequently than his or her colleagues Professor Blackton manages the Administration of Justice Project in Cairo Egypt on behalf of Amideast This paper was prepared for the World Bank s Legal Institutions Thematic Group to assist judicial policymakers and those in donor organizations in deciding whether to purchase a computerized case management system An electronic version is available at http www 1 worldbank org publicsector legal courts htm This paper speaks to several kinds of the practical issues that confront a court or a donor that is considering a first time move to an automated
12. ommon to both Court holds additional hearings Court issues a judgment in the case Or postpones for some further event until judgment is reached Records the judgment There is no inherent boundary on the number or types of court events which the CMA can record and track the CMA can record events about filing fees court charges changes of venue execution of judgments etc The important point for the first time CMA user wondering whether to select as system which has been used in civil law or common law settings is not to be distracted by the fact that the narrative line sometimes sounds very different in the two court systems common law courts call an expert witness to the court to testify about the facts a French style court sends the case to an expert or sends a document to the expert and then records the written statement of the expert at a subsequent hearing When lawyers and judges from say Germany and Canada chat superficially about these two processes they sound quite different When you build them into an electronic case management system they are almost the same just different labels This note has taken a firm stance that a first time user has wide latitude in selecting a new CMA Does this mean that all systems are suitable for everyone No That said do judiciaries look at off the shelf CMA systems and complain that a system isn t exactly right for them Yes One New England State in the US refuse
13. pal court CMAs typically have additional bells and whistles which do not have much relevance to the delay reduction and reporting aspects of case management but rather with clerical automation These American CMA s may generate automatic letters of summons or writs or whatever These features are attractive to the American users but not central to the goal of case management and many of these features do not travel well the Arizona letters from the court to the sheriff may not be of great interest to the court of first instance in Tanzania Another whole set of questions has to do with whether as a court manager you choose to model your new CMA system to look like the old manual one or whether you re conceive the structure There are virtues to both approaches but most courts around the world have opted not to have the new CMA replicate step by step the old case handling procedures They have used the changeover as an opportunity for re engineering and streamlining Most of the work in shifting into automated CMA is behavioral This requires not simply training but genuine human re engineering Since many courts didn t have robust tools for organizing and accessing managerially useful data in the past they often don t have a culture of managing with actual information When as a court manager moving into a new CMA you find the system beginning to produce real information you may also find that the court does not in fact
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