Judge O’Meally has provided an outline of the nature of the work of the Tribunal and the unique aspects of its jurisdiction that gave rise to the need for automation. Amairgen is comprised of 3 separate functions The Registry, the Court Diary and the Electronic Courtroom . Each function comprises a number of modules. If there is a single aspect of Amairgen that distinguishes it from other systems it is the inter -connection of the 3 functions to achieve integration between the Registry and courtroom.

Firstly, I will refer to the Registry function. When a new matter is commenced by filing a Statement of Claim, information such as the names of the parties, their legal representatives, the degree of urgency of the case governed by the category of the illness suffered by the Plaintiff, is entered in the database. Amairgen generates a unique identifier that is printed as a barcode on an adhesive label. The label contains a replica of the Court Seal . The label is affixed to the document replacing the traditional Seal. The Statement of Claim is then scanned and the image stored in the database . All subsequent documents filed in the case are processed in a similar way although processing time is reduced as most of the relevant information is already on the database.

The system has been designed to permit electronic lodgement of documents. In time, when documents are lodged electronically directly into the database, less time will be spent by Registry staff in scanning pleadings and other documents.

The initial data entry and scanning are a prelude to the listing function. When a party requests a matter to be listed for directions ( and this may be this may be within a day or two of filing the Statement of Claim depending on the gravity of the Plaintiff’s illness) , the matter is listed by a few clicks on the relevant screen. Amairgen automatically generates notices of listing for the parties. Currently notices are produced in letter format however a future enhancement to the system will introduce notices to parties via e-mail.

As well as producing notice of listing for the parties the system automatically forwards the following day’s list to the newspaper and to the Internet.

As indicated by Judge O’Meally in his introduction, prior to automation manual listing was a painful process involving word processing and careful checking for correctness and accuracy. This was especially so whenever a last minute change occurred in the list. With Amairgen listing is a quick and simple process.

Amairgen has greatly improved the handling of enquiries from practitioners either at the Registry counter or over the telephone. A screen inquiry will provide details such as who acts for a party , Orders made in Court or documents produced under Subpoena .or indeed any query at all which prior to Amairgen could only be satisfied by checking the file. Accordingly time spent on answering queries has been significantly reduced.

All cases listed in Amairgen appear in the Court Diary. Court Diary assists the President by providing the availability of all Tribunal Judges when dates for hearing are allocated. Court Diary is used in the Registrars Court for making Orders for access to material produced under subpoena and for recording the results of Issues and Listing Conferences conducted before the Registrar.

The Associate enters into Court Diary Orders made by the Judge.

From its inception the Tribunal has practised extensive case management. Amairgen assists with case management as the system will check for compliance with Orders and generate notices for example if a pleading is not filed by the due date. It will also generate notices of listing for cases that have allocated dates for hearing , further directions or Conference before the Registrar.

All information recorded in the Court Diary is available to Judges in Chambers and to the Registrar and staff of the Registry. This is another example of the integrated design of the system. When dates and events in a matter have been entered in Court the information does not need to be re-entered in the Registry.

Court diary can be accessed by Registry staff to vacate a hearing date if a matter settles or if a Judge or the Registrar agrees to alter a listing arrangement.

A future enhancement to the system is the Public Inquiry Module. This module will permit practitioners and others to access Amairgen from terminals in the Registry foyer or from their office or other remote site. Passwords and firewall restrictions will be put in place to ensure access is only available to appropriate areas of the database.

ELECTRONIC COURTROOM

This is the third aspect of Amairgen. It is currently being developed and tested. It is based on software known as Court Book TM Detailed user requirements have been established by the contractor who has interviewed Judges of the Tribunal, Associates, Practitioners , Registry staff and IT personnel. The Electronic Courtroom is a logical development of the system . All the scanned pleadings can be delivered from the Registry into the courtroom. All interlocutory Orders in a case are available from Court Diary and Orders made during the course of proceedings are entered.

Video conferencing is available in the Electronic Courtroom although it is not actually part of Amairgen. Video conferencing is available in the President’s court and is displayed on a television monitor and is also displayed on the Amairgen monitors in front of the Judge, Associate and Counsel.

In the past , proceedings in the Tribunal and in particular those cases involving multiple defendants resulted in documents by the trolley load arriving at court each morning. Parties will soon be required to produce in electronic format any material to be tendered in a case.

Legal practitioners will attend hearings with documents stored as electronic image files. When a document is to be tendered it will be sent electronically to the Associate who will be able to provide the document to all appropriate parties to the case.

When an objection is raised to portions of a document, and the parties agree that the material may be removed, the system will allow the Associate to delete the relevant passages. When agreement cannot be reached, and the Ruling given by the Judge may be challenged on appeal, the system will allow the Associate to mark the relevant passages in a manner that identifies them as removed but they will remain legible. The file will then be stored as the Exhibit.

The Judges of the Tribunal are currently provided with a proprietary item of software known as Transcript Analyser. When the Electronic Courtroom is implemented the judges will have immediate access to exhibits and transcript in Court or in chambers.

When a decision of the Tribunal is taken on appeal Electronic Courtroom will permit the Registry to collect all case file data from the hearing in electronic format suitable for delivery to the Court of Appeal.

• The Electronic Courtroom will have the following functions that will be provided by a Server Module and a Client Module. I will refer to the Server Module as it forms if you like, the "engine."

• Ability to map the layout of the court room . Judge, Associate, Witness, Plaintiff and Defendant will be the permanent elements of the map. The map will also be able to add additional defendants and/or cross claimants.
• Ability to define a new court session. The information to be recorded will include the location, date and time of the session, session clients , their role and the ability to identify their seating positions in relation to the courtroom map.
• Ability to accept and log uploaded documents. The documents uploaded to the server will be displayed on the main server screen.
• Ability to transfer documents identified as exhibits to the Court Book system.
• Ability to maintain an audit trail of logins, documents uploaded to the server, and documents sent to the Court Book system.
• Ability to view documents and images using document viewing software.

Briefly, the Client Module has the following functions:

• Ability to logon to the Server Module
• Ability to send a document to the server
• Ability to receive and store all documents sent from the server for viewing at any time.
• Ability to maintain a list of all documents viewed for a case
• Ability to maintain a list of all documents viewed by a user daily
• Ability to select and view all file types specified for the document viewing software.

Amairgen was developed using client/server architecture on a Sybase/PowerBuilder platform. The software versions used are Sybase 11.5 and PowerBuilder 6.5.

The system runs on Compaq file servers running both Windows NT version 4 and Novell Intranetware version 4.11.

So, in conclusion what are the benefits gained by the Tribunal from Amairgen

• electronic listing
• improved service delivery (eg enquiries)
• Judges can access database in chambers
• electronic case file available for appeal

A handout has been prepared and you are welcome to take a copy. Judge O’Meally, myself and others from the Tribunal are available after this session and throughout the Conference to answer any queries you may have.