One of the supposed reasons for the closure of many community courthouse was the advent of the eBench computer system coming on line in July this year, has been shown to be the lie it is, with Radio New Zealand's announcement (15 April) that the hoped for date of cross over to the new system will be delayed until at least July 2014 because writing the computer programmes is "more complex than anticipated." So it is now apparent that hundreds of trained and experienced court staff have been sacked nationwide and communities have lost their courthouses because of a Minister's desire to have them replaced by a computer system yet to be built and computer programmes that are not even written. Teachers have seen the carnage created by ditching in haste a system that actually works for a "cheaper more efficient system" with Novopay, now the same level of incompetence and haste have been visited on urban and rural centres who have had courthouses close and on staff now sacked after decades of loyal service by a Minister who does not care.
Updated at 8:43 am today
Plans to make law courts paperless have been delayed by up to a year.
Courts Minister Chester Borrows had hoped to have the change take effect in July, but getting the technology in place has proved a bigger job than first thought.
The eBench computer system will allow judges to manage criminal cases electronically and process charges up to 70% faster.
Mr Borrows said police will begin filing their paperwork electronically to courts from July, as planned, but it could be July next year before the system is fully functioning.
He says that was because building computer programmes to handle the changeover is more complex than anticipated.
There are very few lawyers around NZ who do not have horror stories to tell about their experiences with some deputy registrar or another. Some of them can hardly spell their own names and struggle with English as a first language. Others are just plain dumb but what makes them dangerous is that they are arrogant with it.
ReplyDeleteIf this new computer system cuts down the number of times lawyers and the public have to interact with deputy registrars then surely it is worth putting up with the teething problems as a means to this end?