United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The Austrian legal system provides for a wealth of publications of the court, directed at a circle of unidentified or unknown recipients.

In the previous system these announcements and their service have been effected in the conventional way by newspaper announcements or posting on the relevant court notice board. This procedure was not only time consuming and costly, but also had a relatively low publicity effect.

The previous situation regarding experts and interpreters as well has been representative of a similar problem situation in the maintenance of a register of persons. The search for experts and interpreters was very tedious and time consuming, also in particular for the employees in the administration of justice. Voluminous paper registers were maintained at court which covered only the relevant higher regional court district and were soon out of date.
It was not possible for private individuals or companies to search for certified court experts and interpreters nationally in an official data base.

With the “COURTPUB” project the Austrian judiciary set a totally new standard in interacting with the citizens and partners. The Internet-based system “COURTPUB” allows a two-way electronic interaction between the courts, citizens and external experts. Court decisions are published the day following the decision day in legally binding form via internet. Even simple search capabilities are implemented for the less experienced users and an advanced search for the experienced user or legal expert.

With COURTPUB f.i. any citizen or company can check, if another company or private person went bankrupt. Creditors and other parties are informed about important court decisions e.g. date of the next court hearing, name of the liquidator assigned. Features, that speed up the court procedure as well and save up to 95% of the former costs of publication. COURTPUB even increased the income from real-estate auctions, because of the higher number of possible buyers reached. Buyers able to search and see the objects, fotographs and plans more likely join the auction.

The actual load of COURTPUB is more than a million queries per month. There are several thousand regular users, which use the system for their daily professional work: typically users from banks and other private and public bodies, who monitor insolvency cases on a regular basis.

The application is well accepted (production started January 2000) and has even won awards by the Austrian chamber of commerce and by the university of Vienna for being among the best public available legal applications. In 2006 COURTPUB made the top three competing for “The crystal scales of justice”, a prize awarded for good practice in civil justice organisation and procedure by the European Commission and the Council of Europe.

Because of the success of the application it was extended to handle additional proceeding types.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Originally COURTPUB (http://www.edikte.justiz.gv.at) was designed for publications in insolvency cases, however other publications were added constantly. As from 1.1.2000 insolvencies (bankruptcies, compositions with creditors, settlement of debts) have been published exclusively on the Internet with legally binding effect. The costs of publications could be reduced by 95 %. Every Internet user has access free of charge to the latest data. Data is copied automatically from the Insolvency Register within the Automation of Court Procedures to the Insolvency File at the "push of a button". Petitions in bankruptcy have legal effect the following day. Since that time edicts of Commercial Courts are also available via COURTPUB. Since the beginning of 2002 real property auction edicts and further publications of Commercial Courts can be retrieved. By mid of 2002 COURTPUB was extended by announcements of liquidators combined with the database of official receivers in bankruptcy. At the beginning of 2003 the queries of auctions in execution proceedings against personal property, the search for owners in criminal proceedings and the search for curators were added. Since 1.1.2005 all announcements provided for in court proceedings have been published exclusively in COURTPUB. The Official Receivers in Bankruptcy Database and the Expert and Interpreter Lists contain the individuals referred to above with their special qualifications. They are available to the courts and to the public for enquiries on the Internet. As from the beginning of 2004 the Expert and Interpreter Lists have been available on the Administration of Justice Intranet and on the Internet at http://www.sdgliste.justiz.gv.at. Experts, interpreters and receivers in bankruptcy can maintain certain data on the lists (address, telephone number, e-mail etc) and provide addition information on their companies by using an appropriate certificate. Since 2005 the new expert and interpreter identity card is available which meets the standards of the citizen's card. Official receivers in bankruptcy can also use their identity card for publications concerning sales and leasings in bankruptcy proceedings. Moreover mediators in civil matters can be retrieved at http://www.mediatorenliste.justiz.gv.at.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
(in addition to the above listed timeframe) Search enquiries in 2005 (total): approx. 15 m Search enquiries in March 2006: • Enquiries in total: approx. 3 m • Court auctions: approx. 1 m • Insolvency register: 756.450 • List of court experts and interpreters: 334.761 COURTPUB is free of charge, available to every citizen on the Internet and via Intranet to app. 11.000 employees (judges, clerks).

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The Austrian judiciary: The figures show, that this “enterprise” - with an “annual turnover” of 976 m Euro and about 11.400 employed persons - is one of the big companies. It is also a highly efficient enterprise:: recently about 74 percent of the expenditures is covered by the revenues, although the administration of justice has to fulfill also very extensive and responsible functions, where no revenue can be obtained. Figures for the year 2005: Budget estimate: expenditures – 976 m Euro revenues – 727 m Euro (coverage of 74 % of exp.) IT budget – 44 m Euro (4,5 % of exp.) persons employed in the administration of justice: 11.400 (January 2005) Automation of Court Procedures - REDESIGN The Automation of Court Procedures (ACP), which has been in operation since 1986, started with summary judgments and in the meantime supports app. 50 types of judicial procedures. It has undergone a process of complete renewal with the project REDESIGN by utilizing the latest Internet technology. The system has been extended with functions, mainly required by its users, and will facilitate an even faster and simpler management of procedures in the courts. Functions: - Administration of court cases - electronic dispatch of letters - statistics - court fees - index of names (for Austria) - Integrated Text Processing (Text blocks for decisions, etc) - enquiries at social insurances - Electronic Legal Communications (ELC) - PUBLICATIONS ON THE INTERNET (EDICTS) - external enquiries (in the law enforcement proceedings for attorneys, notaries and public bodies for the guidance of legal proceedings and since January 1st 2004 electronic case enquiries) - online help Facts for the year 2005: 7,400 users (of these 1,900 judges and public prosecutors), annually 3.6 m procedures, about 8 m postal items. Electronic Legal Communications (ELC) Electronic legal communication with the courts has already been introduced in 1990, at the same legal level as paper, into the rules of procedure as a communication instrument with the parties of the proceedings. The Austrian administration of justice is one of the first in the world to provide electronic communications. As one of the most outstanding e-Government applications in Europe, the ELC was awarded with the EU e-Government-Label in 2001.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
In addition to the fundamental strategy orientation set forth above, the utilization of the data already generated in the automation of court procedures (see above) was one of the main objectives. In addition, the interoperability of the application, a considerable extension of the existing functionalities, was also intended as a renewal, i. e. the possibility of data input by the parties to the proceedings (experts, administrators). The priorities were set according to the benefits of COURTPUB: . internet-based corporate identity – application . cost saving new system . acceleration of proceedings . 100% coverage of users and services . integration of external partners (i.e. experts) with smartcard-certificates . full-text and expert search-functions . non-limited data restrictions . help-function for legal questions . server-clustering and 24x7 availability

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
As indicated above, since the beginning of the utilization of IT in the Austrian administration of justice, efforts have been directed towards a comprehensive automation of court procedures with focus on improvement of the quality of the service as well as cost reduction. The utilization of IT proved a lever for renewal of the operation of the court, resulting in synergy effects between the possibilities of IT and the shaping of a modern legal procedure. The integration of users both within and outside the administration of justice contributed significantly to the success of the implementation. A nationally uniform procedure as well as the creation of one (!) solution for all types of proceedings facilitates an efficient development and maintenance, a training programme using e-learning, great flexibility in the deployment of personnel, preparation of nationwide comparable statistics and simultaneous management information at the push of a button, and finally a reduction in development and operational costs. COURTPUB had to be an integrated solution and to fit in this environment.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Summed-up achievements (mentioned even in the sections above): COURTPUB with its relevant lists provides citizens, businesses and administration with simple, unbureaucratic, uniform and free access to important information in a structured and clear form. The introduction of IT-utilization resulted in accelerating related court procedures, reducing costs – cost savings of up to 95% (!) in comparison with traditional publications – and increased transparency. The increased publicity of the information led to a marked rise in the proceeds obtained at real property auctions, which is in the interest of all parties to the proceedings. Authentic information is entered in the interactive areas (publication of administrators as well as procedures relating to real property auctions), secured by electronic certificates. Improved updating and publicity create benefits, in particular for businesses but also for every private individual and for other administrative units.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The described plan and the fundamental considerations of COURTPUB are easily transferable. The technical solution is based on lotus notes and web technology ( Host: DB2-Database; Server: Domino Server Lotus Enterprise Integration; Client: JavaScript, Java) COURTPUB had 15 m search enquiries in 2005: approximately 1 m court auctions, 620.000 insolvency cases, 100.000 experts and translators.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The success of the COURTPUB system has far exceeded expectations. A particular success factor was the consistent implementation of the interoperability with other applications as well as the data exchange with users. Up to now the requirements of businesses, to receive all the information contained as a whole via an interface, to process it in combination with other files and to be able to offer it on the market, were underestimated. Due to the sensitivity of this matter this function has not been implemented to date. It is crucial to provide citizens and businesses with an opportunity for simple enquiries even if the matter is basically complex. In addition, complex user interfaces for the experts are to be planned. An important success factor is to deliver the data in a form which meets the requirements of citizens, businesses, the courts and public administration. This may in some cases also mean a reduction of the information to the essentials. Future developments of „COURTPUB“ Due to COURTPUB´s success an increasing number of court publications as well as court related information (e. g. an updated status on which courts have already changed over their document archives to electronic storage) was added to this application. It is to be expected that the legislative bodies will continue to use COURTPUB as a portal for information and publications related to the Austrian system of justice. Since a growing number of private enterprises retrieves data from COURTPUB by means of automation support the Austrian ministry of justice plans to define a standardized data interface, thus providing a constant flow of information for the benefit of economy.


Institution Name:		Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice
Institution Type:		Government Department
Contact Person:		Christian Gesek
Title:		Senior Public Prosecutor
Telephone/ Fax:		++43-1-521 52-2163
Institution's / Project's Website:		++43-1-521 52-2730
E-mail:		christian.gesek@bmj.gv.at
Address:		Museumstrasse 7
Postal Code:		1070
City:		Vienna
State/Province:		Vienna
Country:		Austria

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information