The Justice On Line system (JOL) used by Singapore’s Courts has gotten more efficient after a recent total upgrade, allowing lawyers to present, share and edit documents online with other parties as well as offering a 3-G mobile phone service for lawyers to video conference with the courts whilst on the move.
The result of a collaboration between the Subordinate Courts of Singapore, The Supreme Court of Singapore, the Attorney’s General Chambers and local technology providers, Justice Online 2 (JOL2) is a full featured web-conferencing system for lawyers to communicate with the Courts, their clients, co-workers and other counsels. This move followed an announcement by Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong in January this year that the JOL system currently in use would undergo an upgrading exercise.
With the old system originally used by trial lawyers, Public Prosecutors and the Law Courts for a wide array of pre-trial applications and non-contested hearings, the new system was developed locally based on an extensive review and feedback from users. It also incorporates the ability to seamlessly integrate with the Court's existing Justice Online video conferencing platform.
JOL2, as the new system is dubbed, includes incorporates new features such as online document collaboration and mobile conferencing capability using 3G-enabled mobile phones. Video and audio quality, mobility and scalability were critical considerations in the choice of the technology platform given the wide-reaching enhancements to the underlying video conferencing technology that developers hoped to implement.
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| Enhanced access to justice - Justice OnLine on 3G mobile phone |
The primary technology & services contractor in the JOL2 project is Bizibody Technology, a leading provider of legal technology applications and outsourced services to the legal industry in Singapore.
Serena Lim, CEO of Bizibody Technology, is confident that the greatly reduced start-up costs, the expansion of the scope of JOL2 beyond court hearings, and the falling costs of broadband access in Singapore, will bring about an exponential increase in the number of JOL2 subscribers.
The end of a two month trial period saw existing JOL users successfully migrated to the JOL2 platform. Since then, five to six hours a day of court hearing time each day is conducted through JOL2. Lawyers from more than 25 law practices as well as legal officers from the Legal Aid Bureau and private companies such as Singapore Press Holdings and Courts also routinely use JOL2 to attend court hearings from the convenience and comfort of their own offices.
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