The Gazette 1977

GAZETTE

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER

and the Economic and Social Committee.

In 1966 in Belgium the Union of Belgian Lawyers and

the Federation of Notaries set up a working group. The

group made a report which formed the basis for the

creation of CREDOC (

Centre de documentation

juridique).

The Centre became operational in 1969 and

offers its services to all Belgian lawyers in all fields of

Belgian law. CRFDOC rejected the full text approach

and adopted an indexing or keyword system under which

the basic idea is a "concept" which expresses "a legal

idea". It is a batch processing service (as opposed to a

real-time system). A question is submitted by a lawyer in

writing and the question is processed by the staff of

CRFDOC off-line in batch runs. In 1970 a user had to

wait for 4 to 12 days to receive his answer but the response

time has since been reduced. The data-base is legislation,

case-law and articles published in certain legal journals

since 1st January 1968.

Although other systems are operative in France, Italy,

Sweden, West Germany and the United Kingdom, the

Belgian system, CREDOC, should be particularly

interesting to the Irish legal profession for the following

reasons: It was established by a small profession in a

small country (which is, of course, a small market). It is

supported by all sides of the Belgian legal profession

(including

avocats, notaires,

judges and government

lawyers). It was created by the legal profession to satisfy

its own needs and is non-profit making. Every practising

lawyer makes an annual subscription to a fund supporting

the system. A further subscription is received from the

local Bar Associations and a grant is provided by the

Belgian Government. Once the yearly subscription is paid

by a lawyer he can pose as many questions as he desires.

The climate for the establishment of CREDOC in

Belgium was the "unsatisfactory organisation of legal

materials, and the need for increased efficiency and better

methods of handling the information available to Belgian

lawyers". Therefore, it would seem that CREDOC could

be a worthwhile subject for study by anyone considering

setting up a system in the Republic of Ireland.

It is reasonable to ask for a justification for the

introduction of a computer-based retrieval system. Bing

and Harvold point out that "retrieval systems — in the

form of manuals, indexes etc.— have for a long time been

of assistance to the lawyer in his research. The computer-

based systems represent a technical revolution in this

respect . . .'"They continue: "reference retrieval

corresponds to the traditional legal research. Computer-

based reference retrieval systems represent an attempt to

make this research more efficient. But opinions may differ

with respect to what "more efficient" should imply."

They state that "there are limited possibilities ofjustifying

computer-based retrieval systems by arguing that the user

will be able to do the same amount of research in less

time. The flaw in this argument is inherent in the phrase

"same amount of research". The introduction of a better

retrieval system will in itself imply a change in the

"amount of research carried out". This is a qualitative

change —and this change may itself be the justification

for introducing the new information system".

Bing and Harvold also refer to the argument of

Professor Spiros Simitis of West Germany who in

Informationskriese des Rechts und Datenverarbeitung

(1970) refers to "the legal information crisis". He argues

that modern society has caused a legal information

explosion. Legal norms are used as a tool for

implementing social reform and gaining political control,

resulting in a deluge of statutes, regulatory law etc.

("Normenflut"). At the same time the complexities of

modern society give rise to more frequent conflicts—

which in turn has led to the establishment of an increasing

number of agencies for solving conflicts (administrative

courts, revision boards, etc.), causing a deluge of legal

decisions and precedents ("Entscheidungsflut"). This

legal information crisis undermines the "rule of law" in its

traditional sense — Simitis argues that the rule of law can

be strengthened only by extensive use of computer-based

systems. According to Bing and Harvold this is the main

justification given for the massive effort by the German

Ministry of Justice to create a national, legal information

system (JURIS, Germany). They conclude that

"improvement in the quality of the legal decisions is

usually emphasized as. a justification for introducing

computer-based legal information systems".

(But what

is the extent of the legal information crisis in the Republic

of Ireland? And, if, in fact, none exists will one develop

and, if so, how can it be averted?).

Bing and Harvold acknowledge that computer-based

legal information systems represent investments in time

and money but argue: "When justifying the change in

technology, one might argue that the new information

system is more efficient — making legal research less

time-consuming and consequently cheaper in the long

run. This is obviously not the main motivation behind the

creation of better information systems. We have several

times pointed out that the new technology represents a

basic change influencing the research habits of lawyers.

Comparing the state of research before and after the

introduction of the new technology, one will find a

difference in

quality.

A different type of research is

conducted; the lawyers do not confine themselves to

doing what they were doing before the change; they do

more or something else. These changes in the quality of

legal research may not adequately be translated into

quantitative terms (time or money) and it is precisely

these changes in quality that are very often pointed out as

the chief justification for introducing the new

technology."

In their historical survey of computer-

based legal information retrieval Bing and Harvold give

several examples of this sort of argument. In the United

States, they state, "a major concern was the failure of

conventional information systems to cope with the

information growth".

In West Germany "the principles of the rule of law were

emphasized: the new information systems were to act as

guarantees for equal decisions in equal cases, co-

ordination of the stands taken by the government, etc.

Actually these systems represented measures taken by the

public administration in order to reconfirm that the "rule

of law" was their major concern, and that the information

growth had not undermined the system".

In France,

according to Bing and Harvold, the tendency was similar.

The lack of publication of the decisions of the appeal

courts was stressed when introducing the documentation

system of IRETIJ and other centres. They believe that

this line of reasoning has become most apparent in West

Germany. "The plan of a total, national, legal information

system (JURIS) has in many ways been introduced as a

therapy to an ailing conventional system. The JURIS

system should once more bring the capabilities of the

information system up to the standards demanded by the

volume of information, thus re-establishing the "old

order" . . . These examples must suffice to demonstrate

that the label "rule of law" has served as a major

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