January 22, 2010, 4:06 PM — Despite efforts by the Italian government to move legal records to electronic systems, including a decree that civil-case communications must use the Justice Ministry's secure e-mail system, tradition-bound jurists and a lack of funding is slowing down progress.
In one recent highly publicized case, for example, Italy's highest appeal court chided a Naples judge for delivering his verdicts in almost illegible handwriting, but stopped short of ruling that future communications be made electronically.
Italian lawyers still hark back to the glorious days of Roman justice and delight in using Latin expressions, so it is little surprise that traditionalists like to give expression to their thoughts using pen, ink and paper.
The Court of Cassation was called to rule on the practice after two Neapolitan robbers appealed against a prison sentence on the grounds that the handwritten verdict of the judge who had convicted them was incomprehensible to the human eye.
The judges of the Court of Cassation sympathized with their complaint but declined to quash the conviction, saying the sentence, although difficult to read, was nevertheless comprehensible "beyond a reasonable doubt."
The Rome-based court, in ruling last month, said the practice of writing verdicts by hand was not expressly forbidden but was obsolete and undesirable. In short, the judges would do better to use a computer.
The computerization of the Italian justice system has so far obtained patchy results, according to Claudio Castelli, a Milan judge who previously worked on the project at the Justice Ministry.
Writing legal documents by hand was now rare but was not forbidden, Castelli said in an interview. "There is no specific rule, just a few directives from the Supreme Council of the Magistrature saying that the ability to use a computer should be taken into account in the professional appraisals that determine promotions," Castelli said.
Many of the computers provided for the use of judges and prosecutors were inadequate, Castelli added. "Half of the PCs can't be maintained because they are obsolete. We need much more investment in information technology. Most of the money spent goes on maintenance."
Last year Italy spent €114 million (US$161 million) on equipment and maintenance for the judiciary's IT system, a Justice Ministry spokesman said. Only €38 million has been allocated so far for 2010.
The greatest technological advances have been in the civil, rather than the criminal, justice system, Castelli said. Last year a pilot project for the computerized management of the civil justice system in Milan was among the top four technology projects in a Europe-wide competition, he said.
"Some of our projects are quite sophisticated. We are up there with Austria and Spain among the leading European countries from this point of view," Castelli said.
"The telematic civil trial, which will later be extended to the criminal sector, provides for the online exchange of all documents, those from the interested parties and from the judge, in electronic form and with a digital signature," said Giulio Borsari, a Justice Ministry official. The electronic document handling would not interfere with traditional judicial practices, such as court hearings, Borsari said in an e-mail.
A June 2008 decree requires all communications between judicial offices and lawyers to be moved to the Justice Ministry's secure e-mail system, which provides for the exchange of documents in PDF and XML formats. The system is operational in 17 cities, mainly in the north of Italy, according to a December 2009 Justice Ministry report. Last year it was used for the official registration of more than 34,000 legal documents, the report said.
The system uses a smart-card system to identify authorized users on the basis of their name, tax code and digital signature, and an infrastructure permitting online payments is being developed.
Historians who have pored over the faded photocopies and straggly, handwritten witness depositions that form part of the evidence of some of Italy's most important trials will be relieved to learn that a major effort is now under way to digitalize this information.
"In Milan there is a project to digitalize the files for all the historic trials, such as ... the Red Brigades terrorism trials," Castelli said. "The problem is that the financial and staff resources available are very limited."
While encouraging judges to make use of computer technology, the Court of Cassation does not always lead by example.
