A “great hope” for justice, according to the Barreau du Québec

Kathryne Lamontagne

Monday, 26 march, 2018 00:00

UPDATE
Monday, 26 march, 2018 00:00

Look at this article

The next budget of the government Couillard is one of the “great hope” in the eyes of the Quebec Bar, who is eager to find “several million dollars” to start the long-awaited digital transformation of the judicial system.

“For us, the budget is coming, it is the budget of the great hope in justice,” launches with the assurance of the bâtonnier du Québec, a few days of the filing of the next provincial budget.

Me Paul-Matthieu Grondin claims between 400 and 600 million dollars only to computerise the justice of a measure which would save time and taxpayer money, ” he said. “There is a lot here to cross your fingers. This is the closest thing to a momentum that it has been for a long time, ” he said.

Photo courtesy

Me Paul-Matthieu Grondin
Bâtonnier of the Quebec

It will take massive investment to hope to get out of the judiciary ” the stone age “, pleaded he. At the present time, it is impossible to open a case to court, pay a fee, or file your scanned documents from a computer, ” he recalls.

“There are a lot of law offices that are fully computerized and digitized. But when it comes time to go to the court, it is necessary that you print all. It makes no sense ! It is time that it stops. We need to go to 100 %. We need to go there now. It is time that we move “, says Me Grondin.

Avoid the mistakes of the past

Last September, judges and lawyers denounced in our pages the” archaic ” legal system in force in Québec. The Journal reported of the fact that the ministry of Justice had invested less than$ 2 Million over the past four years to modernize it.

It is that no government plan has been unveiled for the failure of the integrated information System of the justice (SIIJ), initiated in 2001, is planned for 2007 and finally abandoned in 2012, after a waste of$ 76 Million. The minister of Justice, Stéphanie Vallée, provided, however, that such a measure would be disclosed in the spring, that began last week.

Me Paul-Matthieu Grondin is convinced that Québec has the tools necessary to succeed its transition to digital. It will, however, avoid the mistakes of the past. “We have the expertise in Quebec. It is capable of doing so. Of course, it is necessary to learn from the previous examples, analysis-t-it. It is not necessary that we repeat the failures of the past, it is obvious. “