JusticeLink - on line, late, expensive, will it work?

After many years of delay and enormous costs the grand-plan of the Director General of the NSW Attorney General's Department for the local courts to electronically serve the public is finally being rolled out. JusticeLink goes live in the local courts.

It has had some limited usage already in the Supreme Court. If it works it should be a useful tool. However, as JusticeLink is hosted on LawLink, it will be prone to technological glitches because LawLink is a very poor website. While JusticeLink may be an ambitious and expansive service it is not exactly a "world first" as various state court systems in the USA have already developed similar services on a less grand scale.

The IT system may assist the Courts in NSW but with these riders:

1. The Courts are under-staffed and under-resourced (go figure who is responsible for the budget cuts known as "efficiency");

2. IT is only as good as it is maintained and backed-up by a well resourced service.

3. The NSW Attorney General's Department has all of its agencies under pressure due to the public sector policies and practices instituted in it over the past 5 years.

JusticeLink is no genie out of the bottle while the above points remain in a state of perpetual crisis.