Ulyanovsk regional court (ELAR SAPERION)

In the conditions of the load of the judicial system of the Russian Federation which increased in recent years the solution of strategic problems of increase in efficiency of departure and availability of justice is faced the need of the maximum optimization both internal activity of the courts of different instances, and their interactions within creation of a common information space of the judicial system of the Russian Federation.

Need of reduction of terms and quality improvement of hearing of cases requires quick access of judges to banks of legislative data, to the generalized materials of judicial practice, increase in a possibility of scientific research, especially in the new and developing areas of the right.

Customer

The Ulyanovsk regional court is federal court of general jurisdiction and a component of the judicial system of the Russian Federation.

The court always aimed at implementation of the advanced information technologies and operational accomplishment of orders of the President, and today is one of leaders among courts of law regarding ensuring openness of justice that is confirmed by the ratings of the Russian agency of legal and judicial information (RAPSI) and Institute of Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI).

Task

For increase in efficiency of activity of court, quality of training of court documents and also providing employees with more complete and operational information, the Ulyanovsk regional court it was decided to implement an end-to-end information system which would allow:

• switch to electronic copies of documents by preparation and conducting court sessions;
• reliably for a long time to store electronic copies of court documents and their credentials;
• provide effective quick search of electronic copies of documents and providing multi-user access to them;
• automate transfer processes in an electronic form of the new made or arriving court documents.

Solution

Within the public contract ELAR corporation implemented the end-to-end system "Electronic archive of the Ulyanovsk regional court" (EA) consisting from in 2009:

• The electronic storage based on the ELAR SAPERION system providing systematization and reliable storage of electronic copies of documents (legal cases), search, viewing and editing data on legal cases and their attributes;
• The integration module with a subsystem "Judicial office-work the" (SDP) of Justice state automated system allowing to get access to the scanned affairs directly from the user interface of a subsystem;
• Section of scanning and document handling based on 3rd industrial planetary and the 1st document scanners, the electronic archive intended for filling by new documents;
• The module of administration and access control by means of which configuring of components and resource management of a system is made.

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR ELECTRONIC STORAGE

The software platform of SAPERION which provided a number of functions, essentially necessary for effective activity of court, became a basis of electronic storage of legal cases:

• multi-user access, including simultaneous, to the electronic copy of the document from any of jobs of staff of Court and a possibility of viewing, editing index information and printing depending on the configured user rights;
• automatic filling of storage the electronic copies of documents arriving from sections of scanning and loaded by the staff of Court;
• the automatic notification of judges about receipt of electronic copies of documents on cases which are considered or was considered by them earlier;
• access to documents from different card files of SDP Justice state automated system according to a regulation of the rights in each specific card file;
• attributive and full-text search according to all entered documents, with providing information on relevance – the frequency of entry of a required phrase or word into texts of the found documents;
• preserving, in case of making changes, the new document revision without removal old (with automatic recording of date and time of changes and also an opportunity to return to any of the previous versions);

Existence of the certificate of conformity of FSTEC of Russia on the 4th level of absence control of not declared opportunities (NDV-4) with a possibility of use for data protection in personal data information systems (ISPDN) up to 1 class inclusive became separate advantage of SAPERION.

Unique features of a system allowed to implement provisions of Federal laws No. 262-FZ "About ensuring access to information on activity of the courts" and No. 152-FZ "About personal data" regarding security of information:

• storage of all electronic images of documents in coded form (metafile), not allowing fragmentary copying and unauthorized viewing;
• possibility of partial masking of electronic images of documents (closing of certain areas for certain user groups), including at placement in open access;
• detailed regulation of access to documents according to access rights in SDP.

Organization of work

Each employee of regional court participating in preparation of affairs for consideration or who is engaged in synthesis of judicial practice is given an opportunity to carry out by means of the installed client application search of legal cases and their volumes – by number, case volume, surnames of defendants, numbers of articles by which there is a charge.

In addition to the installed client applications access for users to electronic storage of court is implemented directly via the interface Justice state automated system. At the same time users can work with electronic copies only of those documents according to which they have an information access in the corresponding card files of SDP.

SECTION OF SCANNING AND PROCESSING OF COURT DOCUMENTS

For ensuring filling of storage with new documents based on the ELAR professional scanners and a specialized software section of operational translation of court documents in an electronic form was created.

Due to automation of process of scanning, use of three Planskan ELAR book scanners for the sewed documents, the Skamaks ELAR document scanner for the embroidered documents and the system of barcoding, the highest performance and convenience of work of operators of scanning is reached.

Key feature of digitization of legal cases is full text volume recognition of affairs which efficiency is reached by use of the specialized server of recognition (Abbyy of RS) integrated with the EA system for automatic data transmission.

Preserving of the digitized affairs in electronic storage happens to the help of the module of automatic archiving, at the same time a part of accounting information is brought manually, and a part is loaded from Justice state automated system:

(form from the name of the file) File number Tom put

(are autocompleted according to information from Justice state automated system) Surnames of defendants Numbers of articles by which there is a charge Other (is configured)

A system informs responsibles both on successful preserving in archive, and on any error of automatic loading.

Last scanning, recognition and the electronic images loaded into EA are available to the staff of Court registered in a system at once. Even if the original of case is not delivered to the judge yet, it has an opportunity to begin acquaintance with the electronic copy.

Result

Implementation of the complete solution "Electronic Archive of the Ulyanovsk Regional Court" allowed to increase efficiency of activity of staff of Court by hearing of cases, acquaintance with earlier considered cases on similar corpus delicti, at production of solutions and synthesis of judicial practice due to providing:

• operational input in EA of volumes of the affairs made in Court and also affairs, the arriving their district courts;
• the guaranteed safety and the invariance of electronic copies of the documents placed in electronic archive;
• multi-user access and quick full-text search according to all stored documents;
• direct access of users to electronic copies of documents from a subsystem of SDP Justice state automated system according to the regulation of the rights existing in each card file.

Advantages

Significant increase in safety of storage of materials of affairs and cutting of costs for replication of documents, for the transfer account in other courts and issues to lawyers and the parties at will electronic copies of required documents instead of paper originals;

increase in completeness and quality of information support of participants of legal procedure, due to efficiency of providing required data and use of technologies of masking of areas of documents for certain user groups;

more operational and high-quality synthesis of judicial practice when access to any document or case can be received in read seconds is considerable, and search is performed not only on headings, but also in the recognized texts of documents;

Project Development

Since 2012 works on digitization of legal cases of the first civil instance and considered as supervision will begin.

In the next development plans also – setup of forms of full-text search which will give ample opportunities for synthesis of judicial practice and will allow to find all affairs in which the required phrase is mentioned. At the same time the system administrator will be able independently, to manage without involvement of developers all search setups, including quantity of additional search fields.

Besides, already today district courts of the Ulyanovsk region exchange data and documents with regional court on secure channels of communication that gives the chance to organize the centralized storage for all courts of law and magistrate's courts of the Ulyanovsk region.