Post by Nuno B.M. Lumbrales, lawyer, partner at Lumbrales & Associados and LawRD user. He is also the new LawRD Blog contributor:

The use of any technology always goes through distinct stages that can be longer or shorter, depending on the technology in question and the specific geographical features (cultural, technological, etc) it is deployed into.

Several countries are living exciting times, typical of the recent findings (Portugal included) in IT, or to be more precise, its use in certain areas of the Legal and Public Administration fields.

Actually, political powers have been passing legislation in order to be in some cases mandatory and artificially advantageous in others (i.e. benefits of a doubtful justification when it comes to judicial costs), the use of electronic means for submitting legal suite elements, namely via the Internet and the “Citius” platform managed by the Portuguese Ministry of Justice.

Investing in IT and updating IT in Courts and the Justice system at large is not wrong at all. Using artificial incentives through legislation in order to constraint the judiciary actors to the immediate and exclusive use of a tool not yet fully reliable when it comes to ensure integrity,management and preservation of lawsuits, doesn’t make much sense tough!

In deed, problems are frequent concerning the certification of digital signatures, transferring data among complex and autonomous IT systems, and so on, not to mention the constitutional issues raised up by some magistrates (unfortunately in vain) as to the fact that they are being coerced to using an IT system that is managed and run by the executive power and not by the judicial magistrature itself.

Jurists are known for being conservative by nature, not so much into the newer tech trends, more of  “sheet of paper” fans…

That’s true, and for good reasons too, you know, paper does not “crash”.