With court technology systems still awaiting an electronic revolution, Rupert White talks to Lord Justice Neuberger about his vision for modernisation and the future of the Commercial Court

A lack of money, conservatism and an inherently non-commercial culture are preventing the courts from delivering better justice, the judge in charge of modernisation said last week.


Speaking exclusively to the Gazette, Lord Justice Neuberger said: 'The government believes that civil litigation should pay for itself... financially to wash its face, which I think is wrong in principle and means there is not much money around in practice.


'If you put up court fees, it makes litigation more difficult, except for the very rich or the very poor, but you disable, you disenfranchise, the bulk of the people. I see the government's point that we can't allow the legal system to eat up a lot of money, but... money has been tight ever since I've been involved [in modernisation] and I suspect it'll get tighter.'


Lord Justice Neuberger said legal aid problems 'certainly won't get better', and that he feared this may impact on civil court IT.


Arguing that modernisation can lead to better justice for all, the judge pointed out that at the moment it is not even possible to make sure an order is given to parties as they leave court. The fact that the parties in a case might not see a copy of the court order for weeks is 'absolutely outrageous', he said. 'Many people in court are frightened, nervous, they don't quite know what's going on. It is ridiculous that we can't arrange things so that people leave court with a piece of paper in their hands.'


But this process is slowly moving forward, the judge acknowledged. 'It's a combination of conservatism, ... the fact that you haven't got the computer in court, you haven't got the [document] template... all these things are starting to be corrected, [but] then many judges don't have the familiarity or confidence or will-power, or the time.' And time is money, he agreed.


But the judge insisted that money should not be an obstacle to justice. 'You come back to the point that money should not the primary factor when you're concerned with justice. Of course you've got to worry about money, but it should rank behind quality of justice.'


The courts are slowly being brought into the 21st century, and the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) has made leaps forward in its handling of modernisation, said Sir David. But there is still a mountain to climb.


'We have too much [design] by committee,' he said, 'where nobody's ultimately responsible for anything and it's a mess, as against... where you have one mind behind it, managing it, running it and taking responsibility'. That may also be a disaster, he said, but 'at least you have leadership and, to use a terrible word, vision'.


But committee thinking and the seeming need to make every project as large as possible, no matter how small it could be, are still stumbling blocks, he said.


'I've been struck by the fact that every project that I've been concerned with has been struck with serious problems. The Commercial Court IT project has got into very serious difficulties and is not a big project,' Lord Justice Neuberger said. 'The project is simply seeking to organise the Commercial Court; it will develop into a bigger project, but it's astonishing how a small project like that doesn't work.'


Though he was not prepared to point the finger, Lord Justice Neuberger said the DCA should not carry the can for the Commercial Court IT project's problems. 'I think [the electronic delivery group] of the DCA are the least to blame,' he said.


'It may be that the nature of the beast is not as simple as it sounds, but I find it dismaying that such a simple system on the face of it should lead to such problems.'


The 'judicial portal', a planned replacement for the judges' electronic conferencing system FELIX, also ran aground this year; Sir David said the system should now go live in January, some ten months later than scheduled.


But he can see light at the end of the tunnel. Judges will get WiFi-equipped laptops with the capacity for broadband wherever they go, an improvement Judge Neuberger sees as vital.


There are other projects in the works as well. A system of electronic document filing and electronic case management is being planned, but at the moment it is at an early stage, said Lord Justice Neuberger.


But at least it is in the pipeline; his predecessor, Lord Justice Brooke, claimed before his departure that 'for the next three years our courts will have little to offer by way of electronic case management systems or electronic filing systems', despite its 'obvious' advantages.


And scheduled to come to some kind of fruition in 2006 is Libra, the IT system for magistrates' courts, which Lord Justice Neuberger described as 'a festering sore'.


Now that the infrastructure has been put in place, the system itself should follow.


But Sir David expressed his greatest fears for the future of the Commercial Court. 'I think compared to competitors, if it is right to talk about competitors, we should be worried,' he said. 'The Commercial Court IT project is a small project, but if you look at what they have in Singapore, or New York and other places that are trying to grab our commercial court work, there is cause for concern.'


Lord Justice Neuberger explained that the Commercial Court should be seen as one of the business offerings of the City, representing the cutting edge of Britain's journey to a service industry society. When it was mentioned that his view on this wandered tantalisingly close to commercial thinking, he agreed.


'Well, that's how we should be thinking. If, because of our antiquated buildings or our antiquated process systems, we start losing work to other jurisdictions, it'll be very difficult to get back and it may impinge on the whole of the City.'


Modernise, then, or miss out.