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GAZETTE
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
and the Economic and Social Committee.
7
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.
8
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."
10
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".
11
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".
12
(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."
13
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".
13
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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