Legal practitioners now have online access to all acts of pending civil cases before the Court of Magistrates, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said yesterday.

Speaking at the Court Registry, Dr Bonnici said the Lecam Online project had begun in October 2014 and allowed lawyers, notaries and legal procurators to access information on the court’s electronic system without needing to be physically present at the registry.

This, he said, would allow them to carry out research at all hours and ensure clients could get information they needed from their lawyers faster.

In the case of the Court of Magistrates (civil jurisdiction), practitioners could not only access case details but also exact digital reproductions of the physical files.

The minister said that more than 18,000 documents, each several pages in length, had already been scanned.

The project allows lawyers, notaries and legal procurators access to the court’s electronic system without needing to be physically present at the registry

For civil cases pending in the First Hall, Court of Appeal and Small Claims Tribunal, essential details of each case are currently available online, with the ultimate goal being the digitisation of every act in the civil sector.

Dr Bonnici said that, to date, 94 people had registered for access to the system and that, while the number remained low, many of the registrations so far represented offices with a large number of legal professionals.

The initiative represents the most recent in a series of electronic services that have been introduced recently, including SMS notifications whenever cases are deferred. Dr Bonnici said nearly 13,000 SMSs had been sent so far.

Moreover, lawyers can now receive court decrees by e-mail, while both lawyers and legal procurators are sent court testimonies. So far, 25,300 testimonies and more than 41,200 decrees have been sent.

The minister said e-mails are now also sent to inform lawyers and legal procurators when judicial acts are notified, doing away with the need to visit the Court Registry in person to obtain the information.

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