The management of the Irish courts is taking a mighty leap from the 19th to the 21st century in a few short years, Ms Justice Denham said yesterday.
Presenting the second Annual Report of the Courts Service to the Minister for Justice, she said it was telescoping centuries of development into a decade. The advantage of this was that the service did not have to replace old technologies, but was effectively working on a greenfield site in relation to adopting the best systems.
The IT programme it was introducing would enable easy access to information on the courts, and would allow people to file papers, pay fees and fines online and present evidence in electronic format. "It will bring a new democracy of access, through easier access to court lists and processes and easier access to information on the courts," she said.
"The cases which come before the courts reflect a litigious society, a dynamic society," she said. "They reflect the more complicated environment in which we live today and the more complex lives we lead."
Judge Denham pointed out that more than 1,000 people work for the Courts Service, managing the courts, providing support services for the judges, providing information to the public and managing and maintaining court buildings.
This cost over €84 million last year, of which almost €27 million was capital expenditure on refurbishing court buildings and developing a computer system.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said the allocation this year will be €87.27 million, of which €20 million is earmarked for buildings. Asked how cutbacks might affect this, he said that all public bodies could expect some delays. The Courts Service took in about €30 million in fees and fines last year, of which it retained about €5 million.
Besides the money used to administer the courts, the Courts Service also handles money lodged in court, and funds invested on behalf of wards of court and minors. This totals about €800 million.
Accepting the annual report, Mr McDowell pointed out that the Programme for Government included a commitment to change the in-camera rule in family law cases to allow for general reporting.
In family law, the circuit court deals with the vast bulk of divorces and judicial separations, and with the growing number of nullity applications. The High Court deals with "big money" family law cases. The figures from the circuit court show that the number of judicial separations has dropped slightly since the introduction of divorce in 1997 while the number of divorces has risen. However, the figures for the past three years have been fairly constant, at about 2,500 divorces annually.
Surprisingly, the number of people seeking civil nullity has been rising steadily since the introduction of divorce, with 59 applications last year, compared with only three in 1997. This is explained by family lawyers as, in part, arising from people wishing to avoid the reliefs available through divorce, such as maintenance and property adjustment. If a marriage is declared null and void no financial obligations arise.